Godhra: HC terms Banerjee panel illegal

In an embarrassment to the Centre, the Gujarat High Court on Friday declared as 'illegal' the setting up of U C Banerjee Committee to probe certain aspects of Godhra train carnage.

Justice B H Vaghela pronounced the order on a petition filed by a survivor of the carnage, Neelkanth Bhatia, who had challenged the setting up of the Banerjee Committee at a time when Justice Nanawati Shah Commission was already probing the matter.

Following the verdict, the Bhartiya Janata Party has demanded the resignation of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav on moral grounds.

"The court has quashed the order of the Railway ministry to hold an internal probe under section 119 of Railways Act but later sought to justify the appointment of the Banerjee committee under article 73 of the Constitution. Railway minister Lalu Yadav should resign from the cabinet, owning up moral responsibility, and if he does not do so, he should be dismissed by Dr Manmohan Singh," said BJP leader Arun Jaitley while talking to media persons.

"The whole idea behind the appointment of the committee was to bail out those accused of the Godhra train burning incident, who had been denied bail even by the Supreme Court," he charged.

"When one commission is inquiring, then Railways cannot use article 119 of the Railways Act for an internal inquiry. The appointment of Banerjee committee was illegal and unconstitutional," Jaitley argued.

The Committee, headed by former Supreme Court judge U C Banerjee, was set up by the Union Cabinet in September 2004 to probe the incident in which 58 kar sevaks were killed in a fire in S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express in February 2002.