Gujarat against transfer of Best Bakery case

MANDATE 2004

The Gujarat government yesterday questioned the Supreme Court's decision to order the transfer of the infamous Best Bakery case to a Maharashtra court for retrial, saying the court could not have done it as it was not at all an issue before it.

During the hearing of the NHRC's petition for transfer of 12 more cases from Gujarat, Additional Solicitor-General Mukul Rohtagi told a bench of Chief Justice V N Khare, Justice S B Sinha and Justice S H Kapadia that the state has already filed its plea for modification of the April 12 order passed by the Bench of Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat transferring the Best Bakery case to Maharashtra for retrial.

The issued of transfer of the Best Bakery case was never prayed for and not at all argued upon by the parties. Moreover, the transfer issue was pending before the Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, Rohtagi submitted and wondered how some other Bench could pass such an order.

Seeking modification of the court's direction for retrial of the case in a sessions court in Maharashtra, the state government urged the apex court to order a retrial of the case in the same sessions court in Gujarat or any other sessions court in Gujarat under the supervision of the high court.

The state also requested the court to expunge the remarks censuring it as modern day "Neros" who looked elsewhere when innocent children and helpless women were being burnt.

The state's plea, filed on Monday last, would come up for hearing before the Bench headed by Justice Raju in due course.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee yesterday said here that there should be no attempts to divide the minority community without whose support the country could not progress.

"I need the support not because of elections but because I have been striving for years that Hindus and Muslims in the country live together, foster brotherhood, help each other and make each other secure so that together they could take the country forward," he told a group of Muslim leaders who came to extend their support to him.