Author: Editorial
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: September 26, 2008
Trashing a judicial report is not done
In rejecting the Justice GT Nanavati Commission
report that inquired into the Sabarmati Express fire at Godhra and the violence
that followed in Gujarat in February-March 2002, the Congress and its UPA
allies, as also the Left, have acted with expected cussedness. The Congress
has described the report as a "murder of democracy". The CPI(M)
has called it "piecemeal". Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav has
termed the report untrue and compared its findings with those of the Justice
UC Banerjee Committee, set up as an in-house panel by the Ministry of Railways.
The Banerjee report had concluded that the Godhra fire had begun inside compartment
S-6 of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. The Nanavati report has,
on the other hand, gone along with the findings of the police and eyewitness
accounts that have held that the compartment was set on fire by a frenzied
mob that had gathered on the platform and, in fact, attempted to set fire
to other coaches as well. Without going into an analysis of the Nanavati report,
it is worth commenting on the perverse responses it has drawn from those politically
opposed to the Gujarat Chief Minister.
Not bothering to so much as study a report
written by a former judge of the Supreme Court, not caring to go into specific
arguments and pointing out logical inconsistencies or flaws, the Congress-UPA
and Left leaderships have trashed Justice Nanavati's assessment. They have
questioned the honesty and credibility of Justice Nanavati, but offered no
reasons for doing so. Such hit-and-run tactics could be expected from the
familiar bunch of left-liberal activists who have made a career of Gujarat
bashing -- and who have, indeed, said that Justice Nanavati has not "inspired
much confidence". That it comes from mainstream parties that are running
the Union Government is alarming. Consider the hypocrisy. The same Justice
Nanavati inquired into the anti-Sikh violence following the assassination
of Mrs Indira Gandhi in 1984. On the basis of that Nanavati report, two Congress
leaders, Mr Sajjan Kumar and Mr Jagadish Tytler, were put in the dock. Mr
Tytler was even forced to resign from the Union Government. The Congress accepted
the report, as did the UPA allies and the Left. The cabal of professional
civil rights activists hailed Justice Nanavati's dogged pursuit of the truth.
In Delhi, he was a heroic judge; in Gujarat, he is an untrustworthy charlatan!
There was a time in India when a judicial
Commission of Inquiry had a certain sanctity. It was left free of politics
and its findings were debated, discussed, disputed and disagreed with -- but
not debunked wholesale. Even Justice MC Jain's somewhat exaggerative study
of the background conspiracy while going into Rajiv Gandhi's assassination
was taken seriously enough for the Congress to withdraw support to the United
Front Government and force the country into an election barely 18 months after
the previous one. Today, for the same party to ridicule a judicial inquiry
and refuse to point out specifically which sections it disagrees with, what
evidence it feels has not been consulted and why it is flawed, is simply not
on. The Congress-UPA and the Left cannot denounce and reject a report simply
because it doesn't suit their political ends or doesn't deliver the verdict
they would have wanted it to. Tomorrow the BJP-NDA could play this game; and
Indian jurisprudence would be the poorer for it.
