GUJARAT HC ISSUES CONTEMPT NOTICE TO MODI GOVT IN RIOTS CASE

Gujarat High Court on Feb. 15 issued contempt notice to it for not obeying its order to compensate people whose shops were burnt down in the post-Godhra riots. The notice comes a week after the court indicted the state government for non-restoration of religious places destroyed in the communal frenzy.

Fifty-six shop owners whose establishments had been burnt down in Rakhial area of the city had applied for compensation after the Centre announced additional relief package for riot victims in February 2008. In a scathing indictment of the Modi government, the Gujarat High Court had on Feb. 8 termed the 2002 riots as “negligence of the State” and censured it for “inaction”, holding that it had resulted in an “anarchic” situation.

The court passed strictures against the government while ordering it to pay for restoration of 500 odd religious structures destroyed during the riots on a petition by Islami Relief Committee of Gujarat.