Nanavati panel's final report on post-Godhra riots of 2002 in July

GANDHINAGAR: Twelve years and 21 extensions later, the Nanavati Commission's final report on its investigations into the post-Godhra riots of 2002 may be tabled in the Gujarat assembly during the budget session likely to be held in July.

The panel, which got a six-month extension last December, is unlikely to seek more time, said sources close to the development.

The probe panel has already submitted an interim report on the fire in the S-6 coach of Sabarmati Express that killed 59 passengers, most of them kar sevaks returning from Ayodhya, near Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002. In the interim report, it had said the Godhra train carnage was the fallout of a deep-rooted conspiracy by the local people.

The commission's final report is yet to be submitted to the state government.

The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team has already given a clean chit to then chief minister and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the post-Godhra riot cases. The clean chit has also been upheld by a local court.

The commission was appointed by the Gujarat government on March 3, 2002 with retired Justice K G Shah as its sole member and chairman. Later, the government widened its scope of inquiry to include the communal riots that followed the Godhra carnage and reconstituted it as a two-member commission with retired Supreme Court judge G T Nanavati as its chairman. After Justice Shah's demise, the government appointed Justice Akshay Mehta as a member of the commission.

"The term of the commission ends in June 2014," said G P Patel, secretary of Nanavati Commission. "It is expected that the work of the commission will end before June, though only the chairman of the commission can decide on this issue."