The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday directed its registry to provide the paper book related to Gulberg massacre appeals, which runs into 26,000 pages, to two witnesses in the case free of cost. The direction came from the division bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice AC Rao after the witnesses—Saira Sandhi and Roopa Modi—approached the court claiming that they cannot pay Rs 1.21 lakh fee demanded by the high court registry for the paper book.

The 'paper book' contains all the orders of the trial court, list of dates, grounds of appeal, annexures, affidavits, and various other materials related to the case required during the hearing.

Notably, both Sandhi and Modi had lost their sons in the incident in which 69 people were killed on February 28, 2002. The duo had already preferred an appeal before the high court against the petty punishment awarded to some of the convicts and acquittal of several accused in the case by the trial court. While the state government opposed the plea, the court acceded to the request of the witnesses.

Advocate GM Joshi, who appeared on behalf of the high court registry informed the division bench that the applicants were asked to pay as per the high court rules and the amount was sought from them as the paper book is of 26,000 pages. The court, thereafter, directed the registry to amend the rules regarding the same.

The witnesses also appealed to the court to allow them to amend their appeal by adding certain grounds and seek compensation at par with the amount paid to the families of 59 kar sevaks who lost their life in the Godhra train carnage. However, the same was turned down by the court clarifying that the appellants are free to seek compensation during final hearing of the appeals.

Notably, the court had earlier adjourned the final hearing in the case till the third week of June after the lawyers defending the convicts sought time contending that the paper book runs into 26,000 pages and they need to prepare themselves before the case is taken up for final hearing.

As per the case details, the Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team (SIT) had not filed any appeal against the trial court's July 2016 verdict in which 24 persons were convicted and 36 others were acquitted. There were 66 accused, who were put on trial for killing 69 persons in the society in Chamanpura area on February 28, 2002, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri.

Six accused had died during the pendency of the trial and the verdict was delivered only with regard to 60 accused persons. Out of the 24 persons who got convicted, 11 were awarded life imprisonment for murder. Apart from this, there were 12 accused who were punished for minor offences and imprisoned for five to 10 years. One person was awarded a jail term of six months.

While all the convicts appealed against their conviction in the high court, the victim-witnesses questioned the acquittal of majority of the 36 persons. Also, they have appealed for enhancement of sentence for those who were convicted for minor offences.