Nineteen years after three men were sentenced to five-year rigorous imprisonment for their conviction in a 2002 post-Godhra riots case by a fast track court, the Gujarat High Court acquitted them by noting that their conviction was not based on reliable evidence.
A division bench of Justice Gita Gopi granted the appeals made by Sachin Patel, Ashok Patel, and Ashok Gupta, against their conviction by an Anand fast-track court and the May 29, 2006, order of sentence.
“The learned trial court judge was in error in appreciation of evidence. Conviction is not grounded on corroboration and reliable evidence. The identification of the accused has not been established during the trial," the high court added in the order passed on Monday.
Of the nine individuals who faced trial, four had been convicted and handed five-year rigorous imprisonment under sections of the Indian Penal Code for rioting, arson, unlawful assembly and so on. One appellant died in 2009.
The prosecution also said that the three convicts were among a group of people who had gathered at a locality in Anand a day after two coaches of the Sabarmati Express train had been torched at Godhra station on February 27, 2002.
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The group allegedly vandalised shops and torched some of them, defying the order passed by the district magistrate under section 135 of the Bombay Police Act.
The high court observed that whether the appellants were participants in the unlawful assembly and committed arson or not had not been established.
Nothing from their actions in prosecution of the common purpose — of burning things and causing damage to the private and public property — has been established in the trial, the high court said.
59 individuals were burnt to death on February 27, 2002, when the S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was torched at Godhra, leading to riots in Gujarat.
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