Kodnani drops Shah’s name from witness list

NARODA PATIYA RIOTS CASE

FORMER GUJARAT minister Maya Kodnani on Tuesday dropped the names of BJP president Amit Shah and two others from the list of eight persons she had wanted examined in her defence in the Naroda Patiya case.

The division bench of Justice Harsha Devani and Justice A S Supehia reserved the verdict for May 1.

Sentenced to life imprisonment and out on bail in the 2002 Naroda Patiya massacre case, Kodnani moved the petition last week before the bench, which is hearing a set of appeal petitions, including hers. Concluding the arguments, her lawyer said that out of the eight persons, three names, including Shah’s, need not be examined.

Kodnani’s petition stated that in order to prove that she was not at the scene of offence, some additional witnesses were required to be examined. It said that the names of five of these witnesses were mentioned in the chargesheet but they were not examined in the trial court. They include Amrishbhai Govindbhai Patel, Dhaval Rajnikant Shah, Dhirajbhai Lakhabhai Rathod and Mansukhbhai Dundarbhai Lathiya. The other three names, including Shah, were not part of the case in the trial court.

These witnesses support Kodnani’s claim that she was not at the scene of offence at Naroda Patiya on February 28, 2002, when 97 Muslims were killed.

The petition said, “To establish the innocence of the applicant and to enable this court to ensure that justice is not sacrificed, the applicant prays that this petition under section 391 of CRPC be allowed. If additional evidence...is not recorded, applicant would suffer further failure of justice.”