SC to hear bail pleas of convicts in Godhra train burning case on Aug 1

The Supreme Court said it will hear on Tuesday the bail pleas of some of the convicts against whom specific allegations were made in the 2002 Godhra train burning case, which plunged Gujarat into a communal conflagration.

A bench comprising Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra said the pleas will be heard on August 1.

“We have distributed the cases in four categories. In one group is where death penalties were commuted (into life imprisonment) by the high court. The other is of the convicts who have a specific part to play. We have said non-bail (in the second category). The third one is of the people who had peripheral presence and were part of the mob,” the bench said.

The fourth category is of those who are old and have been facing some kind of problems, it said, adding there was one convict whose wife had cancer.

The bench asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Gujarat government, to provide the chart to senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the convicts.

“We will have it tomorrow,” it said.

The top court on April 21 had granted bail to eight people sentenced to life imprisonment in the 2002 Godhra train burning case.

Earlier, the convicts who were granted bail were -- Abdul Sattar Ibrahim Gaddi Asla, Yunus Abdul Hakk Samol, Mohammad Hanif Abdulla Moulvi Badam, Abdul Rauf Abdul Majid Isa, Ibrahim Abdulrazak Abdul Sattar Samol, Ayub Abdul Gani Ismail Pataliya, Soheb Yusuf Ahmed Kalandar and Suleman Ahmad Hussain.

The top court, however, had refused to grant bail to four convicts -- Anwar Mohammad Mehda, Saukat Abdulla Moulvi Ismail Badam, Mehboob Yakub Mitha and Siddik Mohammad Mora -- after Solicitor General Mehta opposed their applications highlighting their role in the incident.