Ahmedabad:
The Gujarat government today refused permission to the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) to file an appeal in a higher court seeking death penalty for former minister Maya Kodnani in the Naroda Patiya massacre case.
This was decided on the basis of Advocate General Kamal Trivedi's opinion that there was "no direct evidence" against her. The AG, however, has given the go-ahead for filing death penalty pleas against Bajrang Dal activist Babu Bajrangi and four other people convicted in the case.
Kodnani was sentenced to 28 years in prison by a court last year. Importantly, the trial court while convicting Kodnani, had termed her a prime conspirator.
In April this year, the Gujarat government set up a three-member team of public prosecutors to prepare groundwork for filing an appeal seeking death penalty for Kodnani, Bajrangi and four others.
But in May, it did a U-turn directing the team to hold the filing of the plea till a final opinion was obtained from the Advocate General's office.
Today, the AG's office submitted its report to the state government stating that there was no need to enhance Kodnani's sentence to death.
The Narendra Modi government had faced flak over the U-turn since it was construed as a decision being taken under pressure from the Sangh Parivar.
Kodnani, a doctor by profession, is the first MLA and the highest-ranking politician to be convicted in a Gujarat riots case.
The three-time Bharatiya Janata Party MP from Naroda was an RSS star in Gujarat and despite the serious criminal charges against her in the riots case, she was made the state's Minister for Women and Child Development in 2007 by Mr Modi.
Kodnani, Bajrangi and 29 others were convicted last August for the murder of 97 Muslims in Naroda Patiya, on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, in the riots that engulfed Gujarat in February 2002.
While Kodnani was given a 28-year prison term, Babu Bajrangi was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison.