Disagreeing with the order of a Sessions Judge to try Muslims and Hindus separately in a 2002 post-Godhra riot case,Additional Sessions Judge R H Sharma on Thursday wrote to the Gujarat High Court to guide him as to how to proceed in the case. The case is listed for trial in Sharmas court. Acting on an application filed by Additional Public Prosecutor (APP) Rekha Trivedi,Sessions Judge P R Patel had in April this year ordered to file two separate chargesheets for Hindu and Muslim accused. On March 30,2002,two persons one Hindu and one Muslim were killed in a communal violence in the Gomtipur area of Ahmedabad. In this connection,the police had arrested 44 people,of which 13 were Hindus and 31 Muslims. The police had filed a single chargesheet against all the accused. One of the accused is former BJP MLA from Shaherkotda,Jitu Vaghela. In her application requesting separate trials,APP Trivedi had stated that since the two groups had formed unlawful assembly separately to fulfill their common objective,they cannot be tried jointly. While defence counsel of the Hindu accused did not object to the application,the lawyer of the Muslim accused,Asmita Palkhiwala,had called the application politically motivated and opposed it since the court had even started examining the witnesses. However,Judge Patel had granted APPs prayer and ordered to file two separate chargesheets for the Hindu and the Muslim accused and ordered to trial them separately as well. The case subsequently came to judge Sharma for trial. But disagreeing with Patels order,he wrote a letter to the High Court. According to Palkhiwala,judge Sharma has sought to know as to under which legal provision the order was passed since the court had already framed charges against all the accused jointly and had even started examining the witnesses and that these procedures were not set aside before passing the order. Palkhiwala said that in case of two separate chargesheets,how will the court divide the witnesses for the two,as there were common witnesses in the case.
