Kodnani not guilty

The acquittal in the Gujarat high court of former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani and 17 others in the 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case is, to say the least, surprising. The conviction of 12 others plus Babu Bajrangi, the chief butcher in the incident in which 97 Muslims were killed by a mob, has been upheld. This may have been taken as given but it brings some relief as a case of justice being rendered in one of the most barbaric events in modern India in which pregnant women of the Muslim community had their foetuses removed on the road by frenzied mobs. Maya, who ironically was once minister of state for women and child development in a Narendra Modi Cabinet in Gujarat, was declared the “kingpin” by the trial court and sentenced to 28 years in jail and was serving time after stepping down as minister until she got bail in the high court.

All cases are judged on strict evidence. But Maya’s acquittal as a chief conspirator follows a classic pattern in our country in which political foot soldiers seem to be hung, drawn and quartered, as it were, and the leaders with clout seem to get away because of weak case presentation by legal officers of the government. In Maya’s case, it was said she was given the “benefit of doubt” as the evidence of witnesses seemed contradictory to the division bench. She had some difficulty bringing in Amit Shah to testify to her presence in the Gujarat Assembly early on that day, but other witnesses did say they had spotted her at Naroda Patiya. A technicality about her not being named in the original FIR has also been mentioned. The ultimate truth is not always easily established in tracking conspiracies and nailing conspirators. Suffice it to say that the wheels of justice have rolled on once again, but ever so slowly in a 2002 case.