New Delhi, 3 April 2014

The Supreme Court today expressed satisfaction over the progress of nine cases of post-Godhra violence in Gujarat probed by Special Investigation Team (SIT).

“There has been a lot of progress and out of nine cases, six are over and three are almost at final stage,” a bench comprising Justices HL Dattu, Ranjana Prakash Desai and MY Eqbal said.

The bench took on record the fresh report of February 27 filed by the SIT on the progress of the cases.

It also noted that since the trial in the cases were ordered to be conducted on day-to-day basis, there was no need for any further direction and posted the case for hearing on August 26.

The Apex Court has been monitoring nine sensitive cases after the National Human Rights Commission and various NGOs termed the investigation into these to be shoddy and unreliable.

Those cases were about the year 2002 riots in Gulberg Society, Ode village, Sardarpura village, Naroda Gam, Naroda Patya, Machipith, Tarsali, Pandarwada and Raghavapura.

The SIT had submitted its final report in the Apex Court in March, 2012 regarding Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society violence case giving a clean chit to Modi and others in 2002 violence cases.