HC indicts Banerjee panel; debars action on its report

Ahmedabad, Mar 7: Indicting the Justice U C Banerjee Commission for making public its findings on Sabarmati train carnage when the matter was subjudice, the Gujarat High Court today (Mar 7, 2006) directed all concerned authorities not to further publicise the report or to act upon it in any manner till the disposal of a petition challanging the validity of the Committee set up the Railway Ministry.

Justice Banerjee, after submitting the report to the Railway ministry on March 3 , had described the Sabarmati train blaze, which claimed lives of 59 passangers on February 27, 2002, as an '' accident''.

Hearing a petition filed by one Nilkanth Bhatia, a relative of a survivor of the train carnage, Justice M R Shah directed all concerned authorities, including the Railway Ministry and the Central government, '' not to publicise the report further and not to act upon the report in any manner till the court concludes hearing the petition.'' The court fixed April 3 for the next hearing.

But the Railways will challenge the Gujarat High Court stay order before a division bench of the same court in a day or two, counsel Nirupam Nanavati said.

Criticising Justice Banerjee for making public contents of the report, Justice Shah said not only did he submit the report to the Railway ministry, but also a held a press conference to reveal its contents. He said propriety demanded that Justice Banerjee should have waited till March 7 when the Court was scheduled to hear Bhatia's petition. The matter was sub-judice and the panel had submitted its report just four days before the hearing in High Court, he noted. Publicising the report has undermined the authority of the court, Justice Shah said, adding '' This is in opinion of the court, is over-reaching the process of the court.'' ''If the Committee wanted to file the report then it should have sought the court's permission,'' he said, stressing that ''nobody was above the law.'' Bhatia had moved the court last year, challanging the validity of the Committee when the Gujarat government had already set up the Justice G T Nanavati-Justice K G Shah Commission for probing the train carnage and the riots that followed in Gujarat.

UNI