Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi is finding it difficult to come out of the shadow of 2002 riots.
Just a few days after appearing before the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team, Modi received another jolt when the Nanavati Commission said before the Gujarat High Court that its decision of September 2009 to not summon the Gujarat Chief Minister was not final.
The Gujarat High Court on March 22 had asked the Nanavati Commission to clarify by April 1 whether it will summon Modi in the matter.
A division bench of Chief Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya and Justice Akil Kureshi sought this information from the government pleader while hearing an appeal by Jan Sangarsh Manch, an NGO representing the 2002 riot victims.
Nanavati Commission, investigating the 2002 riots in the state, has in September 2009 disposed of Jan Sangarsh Manch's application asking for summoning of Modi and others saying that it did not find justification in cross-examining them at that point of time for the purpose stated by JSM.
The Commission had further stated in the order that allegations made in JSM's application were vague and based on wrong or unwarranted assumptions.
JSM had sought quashing of the Nanavati Commission's order in the Gujarat High Court and prayed that Modi and three others - the then home minister Gordhan Zadafia, health minister Ashok Bhat and DCP Zone 5, RJ Savani - be called for cross examination with regard to the 2002 riots.
The Nanavati Commission was constituted by the Modi government in May 2002 to investigate the facts and events that led up to the Godhra train carnage and the riots that followed.
The Commission's report was tabled in the Gujarat Assembly in September 2009in which it had called the Sabarmati train burning incident a pre-planned conspiracy and given Modi a clean chit citing the lack of evidence to show he had a role to play in either incident.
The Commission also said there was no lapse on his part in complying with the recommendations of the National Human Rights Commission.
Modi was on March 27, 2010 also questioned about his alleged role in the Gulburg Society massacre in which former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffery and 68 others were killed by the Special Investigation Team in two sessions, lasting more than nine hours.
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