The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to eight men sentenced to life imprisonment in the 2002 Godhra train burning case, noting that most of the convicts had remained in jail for periods ranging between 16 and 18 years.
But a bench of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dhananjaya Y Chandrachud and justice PS Narasimha refused to release four others.
”We are inclined to grant bail to the applicants having due regard to the period of imprisonment which has been undergone, particularly, since the appeals are not likely to be taken up for disposal at an early date,” the bench said.
The eight convicts approached the top court earlier this year, saying that both the trial court and the Gujarat high court sentenced them to life imprisonment for pelting stones and causing damage to the S6 coach of the Sabarmati Express. A total of 59 people returning from Ayodhya died on February 27, 2002 when a mob that gathered near Godhra railway station bolted the compartment door from outside, pelted stones, and set the coach on fire.
The eight convicts were released on bail subject to the terms and conditions to be imposed by the sessions court. This included Abdul Sattar Ibraham Gaddi Asla (spent 18 years in jail), Yunus Abdul Hakk Samol (spent 17 years 10 months in jail), Mohammad Hanif Abdulla Moulvi Badam (17 years), Abdul Rauf Abdul Majid Isa (17 years, 10 months), Ibrahim Abdulrazak Abdul Sattar Samol (17 years, 11 months), Ayub Abdul Gani Ismail Pataliya (17 years), Soheb Yusuf Ahmed Kalandar (18 years, 8 months), and Suleman Ahmad Hussain (16 years).
They were convicted under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code among other offences by the trial court in 2011 and the high court in 2017.
Four convicts were denied bail andno reason was given by court for the same. The court order said:“We are not inclined to grant bail to the following applicants. The interlocutory applications relating to the above applicants shall stand dismissed, at this stage.”
Senior advocates S Nagamuthu and Sanjay Hegde urged the court to consider the bail at a later stage. Hegde even urged the court to consider their bail saying, “There is a festival tomorrow,”
Solicitor general Tushar Mehtaopposed their submission and said, “From one of them an iron pipe was recovered while another was carrying a dhariya (sharp weapon in the form of a sickle).”
He was referring to Anwar Mohammad Mehda and Saukat Abdulla Moulvi Ismail Badam who have been in jail for 20 years and 17 years, respectively.
For the other two — Mahboob Yakub Mitha and Siddik Mohammad Mora — the state submitted that they were part of hatching the conspiracy by arranging petrol and pouring it on the coach. The two men have been in jail for 20 years and 19 years, respectively.
The bench held, “The IAs (applications) relating to the above applicants shall stand dismissed, at this stage.”
Out of the 31 people convicted in the case, 11 were sentenced to death by the trial court in 2011 while 20 were awarded life sentence. In 2017, the Gujarat high court commuted the death sentence to life in jail for all the 11 death row convicts.
The state appealed against the HC verdict in 2018 seeking death sentence to be restored. Some of the accused too have filed appeals against the HC verdict (against conviction). These appeals are pending since 2018 and the bail applications decided today were filed in one such batch of appeals.
In May last year, the Supreme Court granted medical bail to one of the convicts, Abdul Rehman Dhantiya, after the court was informed that his two daughters were disabled and his wife suffered from a terminal illness. In December, another convict, Farooq, was released on bail after having spent 17 years in jail. He was charged with pelting stones. Others are yet to file bail petitions.
The state argued that there could not be a more serious crime than locking, burning and letting 59 persons — including women and children — helplessly die. In October last year, when the top court asked the state whether the convicts would be entitled to premature release under the state’s remission policy, Mehta said that the provisions of the now-repealedTerroristsand Disruptive Activities Act (TADA) were invoked in this case, and hence most of the convicts were ineligible for remission.