Kalam

Ahmedabad, Sept. 6: A panel probing the 2002 Gujarat riots has rejected the claim of privilege by the President’s secretariat and asked it to hand over crucial papers.

These documents are letters that K.R. Narayanan wrote as President to his Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, advising him on how to tackle the violence.

Long after his term ended, Narayanan told a magazine a few months ago that Vajpayee had ignored his letters that urged immediate measures to curb the rioting.

The Nanavati-Shah Commission of Inquiry, prodded by riot victims’ counsel Mukul Sinha, had twice asked for the letters from Rashtrapati Bhavan but was told they couldn’t be sent because of “privilege”.

Today, the commission upheld Sinha’s stand that the privilege claimed under Section 74 (2) of the Constitution is not legally tenable, and again asked Rashtrapati Bhavan to send the letters. It said it does not feel production of the letters will endanger the country’s security.

“Now the President’s office cannot say no,” Sinha said. “It will have to hand over the documents. Once the commission gets the letters, I will see to it that the former Prime Minister (Vajpayee) is summoned for cross-examination.”

In July, Rashtrapati Bhavan had told the commission: “Having taken all facts into consideration, the President’s secretariat would like to abide by its earlier stand of claiming privilege under Section 123 and 124 of Indian Evidence Act 1872 as was communicated to you on 7th June, 2005, and that there is nothing further to add to it.”

In a related development, the government’s counsel, J.M. Panchal, told the commission that he wanted to cross-examine four persons who were travelling in coach S-6 of the Sabarmati Express on February 27, 2002. He wanted their version of the Godhra train fire that had triggered the riots, Panchal said.

The commission asked him to check whether these passengers ? Subhash Mishra, Radhye Shyam Mishra, Rajneesh Gupta and Birpal ? had appeared before the panel before or filed any affidavit.