Maya Kodnani (File Photo)

AHMEDABAD: Eleven years after trial began in the 2002 Naroda Gam massacre case, in which former Gujarat minister Maya Kodnani is an accused, the Gujarat high court has transferred SIT court judge M K Dave. The development, which comes at a time when the trial was on the verge of completion, may delay the verdict in the case.

Judge Dave was hearing the final arguments from Kodnani when the HC ordered his transfer on Friday (March 6). Dave has been moved to Valsad district and will be replaced by Bhavnagar principal district judge S K Baxi. Forty district and sessions judges were transferred by the HC on Friday.

With judge Dave’s transfer, all the advocates may have to make their arguments again. Final arguments on the basis of the bulky record of evidence in this case had begun in February 2018. It first started before then SIT court judge P B Desai. He retired from service when the prosecution completed its arguments the same year.

When the case got a new judge in Dave immediately after judge Desai’s retirement, the prosecution had to make the arguments by reading the evidence again. Most of the defence lawyers also made their arguments before judge Dave. Arguments made by advocate Chetan Shah, who represented many of the 84 accused persons in this case, lasted nearly a year. After him, other defence lawyers completed their arguments.

Kodnani’s advocate Amit Patel started his arguments last week. Patel had read the evidence and argued for three days when the HC decided to transfer Dave.

In his argument, Patel told the SIT court that Kodnani was not in the Naroda area when the violence took place on February 28, 2002. Eleven people were killed in the Naroda Gam violence.

The lawyer highlighted parts of the testimonies of prosecution witnesses and told the court that Kodnani was at Sola Civil Hospital and at various places outside Naroda when the violence was taking place in Naroda Gam.

This is not the first time that Kodnani has claimed that she was not in Naroda, as is claimed by various witnesses in the case. The witnesses had testified to her presence along with former VHP leader Jaideep Patel and Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi just outside the locality, where Kodnani allegedly instigated a mob, which then indulged in violence.

Kodnani was booked in this case in 2008, after the Supreme Court constituted the SIT and ordered it to further investigate nine 2002 cases. She was also arraigned in the Naroda Patia massacre, in which 97 people were killed. She had claimed an alibi in this case, but her alibi was not accepted by the SIT court and she was sentenced to 28 years in prison in 2008, for conspiracy, murder and rioting.

However, Kodnani was in 2018 acquitted by the Gujarat high court, which said there was not enough evidence against her in the Naroda Patia case. The HC noticed that none of the 11 eyewitnesses could provide the number of the vehicle in which she allegedly reached the spot. It held that the SIT court had wrongly accepted witnesses’ testimonies by brushing aside discrepancies in their accounts.

