SC refuses to stay order on damaged religious structures

July 31, 2012: The Supreme Court of India on Monday refused to stay the repair of religious places damaged during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

The apex court gave an option to formulate a scheme for repairing religious places damaged during the riots on the lines of its earlier order where it had asked the Odisha government to formulate a scheme for repairing churches damaged during the 2009 Kandhamal riots.

The court’s direction came after the state government filed an appeal against the High Court order directing it to pay compensation for the damaged shrines. The state government told the court that it is working on a scheme to compensate the damaged religious properties.

The High Court on February 8 had pulled up the government for its inaction and negligence, which resulted in the destruction of religious structures. It had ordered compensation for over 500 places of worships.

The Hindu-Muslim violence was a series of incidents triggered after the burning of a train in Godhra in which more than 1,000 people were killed and over 200 reported missing.
Meanwhile, A special court on Monday convicted 21 people in a 2002 Gujarat riots case. All accused were absolved of destruction of evidence charges and no murder and conspiracy charges were proved against them in the killings.

Eighty five people were charged for killing 11 Muslims in Visnagar town in north Gujarat in February 2002. The remains of the dead were found near a pond a week after the incident when forensic experts visited the spot for the first time.

Designated Judge S. C. Srivastava convicted police inspector and first investigator M. K. Patel for one-year jail term for dereliction of duty. He is the first police officer to be convicted in the 2002 riot cases. The court also acquitted 61 people of all the charges in the case.
Fifty one people out of the acquitted were given benefit of doubt. Two politicians, the then legislator of the Bhartiya Janata Party Prahlad Gosa and Visnagar municipality president Dahyabhai Patel, were also acquitted on the basis of benefit of doubt.