New Delhi, April 12: The Supreme Court took to task the investigation and prosecution of the Best Bakery case in the retrial order it passed today and regretted the riot-related massacre.

“If one even cursorily glances through the records of the case, one gets a feeling that the justice delivery system was being taken for a ride and literally allowed to be abused, misused and mutilated by subterfuge,” the bench of Justices Doraiswamy Raju and Arijit Passayat said.

Picking out Gujarat High Court for specific disapproval, the bench said: “The court, in turn, appeared to be a silent spectator, mute to the manipulations, and preferred to be indifferent to sacrilege being committed to justice.”

“Courts have to take a participatory role in a trial. They are not expected to be tape recorders to record whatever is being stated by the witnesses.”

Upbraiding the high court for “hurriedly” dismissing an appeal against the trial court’s acquittal order, the bench said “the course adopted was not permissible”. The high court had said it would explain the reasons for the dismissal later as it was “closing for (the) winter holidays”.

The bench pointed out that it had “in several cases deprecated (such) practice adopted by the high court in the present case”.

“There are several infirmities (in the case) which are telltale even to the naked eye of even an ordinary common man,” the apex court said.

“The high court has come to a definite conclusion that the investigation carried out by the police was dishonest and faulty. That was and should have been per se sufficient justification to direct a retrial of the case.”

Putting the prosecutor in the line of fire, the bench said: “The public prosecutor appears to have acted more as a defence counsel than one whose duty was to present the truth before the court.”

“Even if the prosecutor is remiss in some ways, it (court) can control the proceedings effectively so that the ultimate objective of truth is arrived at. This becomes more necessary where the court has reasons to believe that the prosecuting agency or the prosecutor is not acting in the requisite manner,” the apex court emphasised.

The Gujarat government was not spared either, with the court saying its role left much to be desired. “One gets a feeling that there was really no seriousness in the state’s approach in assailing the trial court’s judgment.”

“The little drops of humanness, which jointly make humanity a cherished desire of mankind, had seemingly dried up when the perpetrators of the crime had burnt alive helpless women and innocent children,” the bench said.

“Was it their fault that they were born in the houses of persons belonging to a particular community?”

The court said the “judicial criminal administration system must be kept clean and beyond the reach of whimsical political wills or agendas”.

It rejected the inquiry into the case as “perfunctory and anything but impartial, without any definite object of finding out the truth”.