In a clear indictment of the Narendra Modi Government, the Supreme Court today ordered that the Best Bakery case be re-tried in Maharashtra as Gujarat was still not ‘‘congenial and conducive’’ to a fair trial. Setting a new benchmark for riot cases which have a notoriously poor conviction rate, the apex court directed the Gujarat Government to consult victims and witnesses before appointing a new public prosecutor for the fresh trial in Maharashtra. ‘‘The modern day ‘Neros’ were looking elsewhere when innocent children and helpless women were burning, and were probably deliberating how the perpetrators of the crime could be protected,’’ a bench comprising Justice Doraiswamy Raju and Justice Arijit Pasayat said, while allowing appeals filed by key witness Zaheera Sheikh and the Gujarat Government. It was Zaheera’s mother Sehrunissa who first broke her silence to The Indian Express when she said that she and her daughter had lied in court ‘‘trembling with fear.’’ Though both the appeals had sought a retrial of the Best Bakery case—in which 14 were burnt alive during the riots—Zaheera alone had wanted it to be held outside Gujarat because of the threats received by her and other witnesses from a local BJP leader to desist from deposing truthfully during the original trial in Vadodara. Quashing the High Court’s acquittal of all the 21 accused persons of the charge of killing 14 persons, the bench directed that the case be re-investigated under the direct supervision of Gujarat’s DGP. Justice Pasayat, writing a 70-page judgment for the bench, told the Governments of Gujarat and Maharashtra to give adequate protection to witnesses and victims ‘‘so that they can depose freely without any apprehension of threat or coercion from any person.’’ Slamming the Modi Government for its handling of the case, the court said: ‘‘Judicial criminal administration system must be kept clean and beyond the reach of whimsical political wills or agendas and properly insulated from discriminatory standards or yardsticks.’’ Since the public prosecutor had acted more as a ‘‘defence counsel’’ during the trial in Vadodara, the apex court took the extraordinary step of allowing the complainants to have a role in the selection of the public prosecutor who will conduct the retrial. ‘‘Though witnesses or victims do not have any choice in the normal course to have a say in the matter of appointment of a public prosecutor,’’ it felt contrained to make an exception ‘‘in view of the unusual factors noticed in this case.’’ Holding that fair trial was still not possible in Gujarat, the bench said: ‘‘Keeping in view the peculiar circumstances of the case and the ample evidence on record, glaringly demonstrating subverison of justice delivery system with no congenial and conducive still prevailing, we direct that retrial shall be done by a court under the jurisdiction of the Bombay High Court.’’ Questioning the seriousness with which the Gujarat Government has been pursuing the Best Bakery case, Justice Pasayat recalled that the state had appealed against the trial court’s acquittal only after the NHRC moved the Supreme Court last August. Even then the memorandum of appeal it originally filed before the High Court was ‘‘an apology.’’ It made improvements only after ‘‘this court expressed its unhappiness over the perfunctory manner in which the appeal was presented.’’ Tracing the course of the Best Bakery case, the SC said ‘‘one gets a feeling that the justice delivery system was being taken for a ride and literally allowed to be abused, misused and mutilated by subterfuge.’’ It warned that trials should not reduced to ‘‘mock trials or shadow boxing or fixed trials.’’ The apex court also pulled up the Gujarat High Court for making ‘‘irresponsible’’ remarks against the NHRC and activists such as Teesta Setalvad. Expunging those lines, Pasayat said, ‘‘the High Court appears to have miserably failed to maintain required judicial balance and sobriety in making unwarranted references to personalities and their legitimate actions before competent courts.’’
