The Supreme Court on Thursday posted the final hearing on appeals by the Gujarat government and several other convicts in the 2002 burning of coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra railway station to February 13.
Scheduling the matter for a final hearing on February 13, a bench of Justice JK Maheshwari and Justice Aravind Kumar said that no adjournment would be granted in the matter on the next date of hearing.
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The bench asked parties to translate the trial court records, which are in Gujarati, into English and digitise them so that the records are accessible to all parties.
A batch of criminal appeals were filed by the 2002 Godhra convicts against their conviction by the trial court and subsequently by the Gujarat High Court. They have challenged the October 2017 verdict of the High Court which had upheld the conviction of several convicts.
The Gujarat government had also approached the top court seeking death penalty for the 11 convicts whose sentences in the case were commuted to life imprisonment by the High Court.
The High Court upheld the 31 convictions in the case and commuted the death penalties of the 11 convicts to life imprisonment.
The incident took place on February 27, 2002, when coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express was burnt, causing 59 deaths that triggered riots across the state.
In March 2011, the trial court convicted 31 persons, of whom 20 were sentenced to life imprisonment and 11 were awarded death penalty. It also acquitted 63 people.
