Can’t comply with SC order: Gujarat

The state had claimed in its counter affidavit on Monday that it had ‘‘complied’’ with the court’s directions and offered protection to 1,187 witnesses in the nine serious cases shortlisted by the NHRC. But it asserted that most of those witnesses had refused to accept protection for the time being and instead asked to be provided the same at a later stage.

As regards the Best Bakery case, the Narendra Modi government has asserted that no witness ‘‘had complained to police or the state government about threat or coercion extended to them.’’

Accusing the NHRC of ‘‘rushing’’ to the Supreme Court with a ‘‘misconceived’’ petition, the state said: ‘‘It appears that the so-called threat or coercion to Zaheera Habibullah Shaikh and her mother Seharunnisa Shaikh came to the knowledge of the petitioner and others through media reports.’’

Questioning the maintainability of the petition, the state said the NHRC ‘‘appears to have been carried away by the campaign orchestrated by a section of media casting aspersions on the functionaries of administration of justice’’.

The state asserted that if the NHRC’s petition is entertained by the apex court, it would set a ‘‘bad precedent having wide repercussions on the criminal cases pending throughout the state of Gujarat and in the country.’’

Referring to its own appeal filed in the high court last month against the acquittals in the Best Bakery case, the state said the NHRC’s petition seeking a retrial outside Gujarat is ‘‘does not survive’’. It also said there were no precedents of bypassing high courts in criminal trials ending in acquittals and the NHRC’s bid to seek relief directly from the Supreme Court is ‘‘extremely exceptional’’.

While urging the court to modify its order on witness protection, the state said that its forces were already stretched as ‘‘a large number of villages, towns and cities are communally sensitive and as it is, adequate forces are required to be deployed on a permanent basis in such sensitive areas for maintenance of peace, tranquility and communal harmony.’’