Godhra fire: Govt moves SC on tabling Banerjee report in House

The Government on Friday moved Supreme Court seeking permission to table in Parliament the Justice UC Banerjee committee report on Godhra fire tragedy which had claimed 59 lives in a coach in Sabarmati Express in 2002.

The Centre filed the petition against the order of the Gujarat High Court which had restrained it on March 6, 2006 from tabling in Parliament the findings of the Banerjee Committee which had concluded that the blaze in S-6 coach was accidental and not a deliberate act.

A Bench headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, while taking note of the plea, asked the High Court to dispose of a petition on the issue filed by the Centre within six weeks.

The High Court had stayed the placing of the report of the Committee set up by the Railway Minister Lalu Prasad and had said the Centre will have to wait till its final order.

The High Court had also criticised the panel for making its report public without its permission.

Justice Banerjee, a retired Supreme Court judge, who headed the one-member panel, in its interim report on January 17, 2005, had said that the preliminary inquiries revealed that there were no indication that the train’s coach was torched from outside.

Justice Banerjee Committee’s report was contradicted by the findings of another Commission set up by the Gujarat Government.