Godhra case: Hearing put off for two months

The Gujarat high court on Wednesday granted two months' time to the special court to submit case papers of the 2002 Godhra train burning case, in which 11 persons have received death sentence, while 20 others have been awarded life imprisonment.

The division bench of Justices R R Tripathi and P P Bhatt is hearing confirmation proceedings of the death sentence. A death sentence has to be confirmed by the high court, as per the law.

Special Judge P R Patel, who had given the judgement in the case, had been asked by the high court last month to submit all documents, but Patel wrote back saying that documents were voluminous, and photocopying would need some time.

Some of the documents were old and not fully legible after photocopying, so they would need to be re-typed. high court on Wednesday gave two months' time, asking special court to send them at the earliest.

On March 1, special court had awarded death sentence to 11 persons and life imprisonment to 20 others, in connection with the 2002 Godhra train burning incident, in which 59 people died, triggering riots in the state.