The city sessions court on Wednesday rejected a plea seeking transfer of the Best Bakery case of Gujarat to some other additional sessions judge. The petitioner, an accused in the case, has claimed that the trial court had not taken cognisance of his apprehension that witnesses were being tutored. He had also written to the Gujarat police to probe if activist Teesta Setalvad had played any role in influencing the witnesses.
Harshad Solanki had on July 20 filed the plea through lawyer Prakash Salsingekar. “I have moved a plea to transfer the case as the court passed the order for further examination of the witnesses and issued summons to witnesses for identification of the accused in my absence and without hearing me,” Salsingekar had said.
Solanki is being prosecuted along with Mafat Gohil for allegedly being part of a mob that had attacked Best Bakery at Hanuman Tekri, Vadodara, on March 1, 2002, and killed 14 people. This incident followed the burning of Sabarmati Express in Godhra on February 27 in which 14 karsevaks (Hindu pilgrims), who were returning from Ayodhya, were killed.
On June 27, 2003, a Vadodara court acquitted all 21 accused in a riot case after the witnesses turned hostile. Some of the witnesses later told the media that they were under pressure. Taking cognisance of the matter, the National Human Rights Commission filed a petition before the Supreme Court, which in April 2004 ordered retrial in several riot cases, including the Best Bakery case, in Mumbai.
The sessions court had in the first phase of the bakery case trial convicted nine of the 17 people of murder in February 2006. They were sentenced to life imprisonment while the remaining eight were acquitted.
Solanki and Gohil were arrested in 2013.
Solanki’s lawyer has mentioned in the plea the instances where they suspected that the witnesses were tutored to identify the accused.
The plea claimed that a hearing was scheduled for June 22, 2022 when a witness was supposed to depose. However, the scheduled testimony was postponed by the trial court only on the request of the special public prosecutor the previous day, it said.
The accused had also pleaded for investigation to find out if Setalvad had a role in influencing the witnesses. Solanki’s legal advisors had on July 7 written to the Gujarat police in this regard.
The letter said that the special judge who conducted trial in the case had in the verdict mentioned the instances of witnesses being tutored by Setalvad.
“The cases relating to Zakia Ehsan Jafri and Best Bakery are part of a common conspiracy by Setalvad,” Solanki’s lawyer said.
Setalvad has already been arrested by the Gujarat police and is being probed for her purported role in manipulating evidence and tutoring witnesses who testified before an inquiry commission.
