Biased judge Jyotsna Yagnik needs to be dismissed immediately

(NOTE: A very scholarly, very important, must-read article with details of the judgment of this case with observations is here. http://dharmanext.blogspot.in/2014/06/guilty-until-proven-innocent-note-on.html )

TWO VERY IMPORTANT articles on this case have been written by Madhu Kishwar in September 2017. They are:
1-  Case Against Maya Kodnani, Convicted in 2002 Riots, Has Gaping Holes
https://swarajyamag.com/politics/case-against-maya-kodnani-convicted-in-2002-riots-seems-pretty-thin 

2- Judge Jyotsna Yagnik's Legal Acrobatics in the Maya Kodnani Case of 2002
https://swarajyamag.com/politics/judge-jyotsna-yagniks-legal-acrobatics-in-the-maya-kodnani-case 

   Justice Jyotsna Yagnik is a judge in Gujarat (now retired).

   She is a one-time junior lawyer of known Congress leader and former Gujarat Assembly Acting Speaker Manubhai Palkhiwala. She was also the principal of I M Nanavati Law College in Ahmedabad which was owned and managed by a known Congress family.

   Jyotsna Yagnik gave the judgment in the infamous Naroda Patiya case on 29 August 2012. It is very dangerous to see Jyotsna Yagnik as judge. She convicted the then Naroda MLA Mayaben Kodnani in the Naroda Patiya case.

   Now note here that RJD chief and former Bihar Chief Minister and former Railway Minister Lalu Yadav filed a petition in the Supreme Court just weeks before a trial court was going to give its judgment on 15 July 2013 against Lalu in the fodder scam case. He did not raise this objection until just a few weeks before the judgment, when the date of the judgment was already fixed. The petition filed by Lalu Prasad alleged that the trial court judge P K Singh is biased against him as he is a relative of P K Shahi, Education Minister in the government of Nitish Kumar "who is his (Yadav's) biggest political enemy". Prasad alleged in his appeal that the trial judge's sister was married to Bihar minister P K Shahi's cousin.

  The apex court restrained the special CBI court in Jharkhand from pronouncing its verdict on July 15 in a fodder case involving the RJD chief temporarily accepting Lalu’s argument at that stage of the trial!

   Jyotsna Yagnik was given the case though she was a known junior lawyer of former Gujarat Assembly Speaker Manubhai Palkhiwala. In the Supreme Court itself there was a bench consisting of two judges- Aftab Alam and Ranjana Desai which not only passed orders against the Gujarat Government but also made several unnecessary comments against the Gujarat Government. Justice Ranjana Desai isthe daughter-in-law of former Congress Minister of Gujarat, Amul Desai. Aftab Alam was so biased that a former Gujarat Lokayukta wrote to the then CJI Justice Kapadia to keep him away from the Gujarat Government cases. Aftab Alam’s daughter Shahrukh Alam is also a known anti-Modi activist, linked to Teesta Setalvad. The Gujarat High Court judge who saw the Ishrat Jahan case is Justice Abhilasha Kumari, daughter of Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh of the Congress Party!

   Now see how far the relations were in case of Lalu Yadav- judge’s sister married to a cousin of a JD (U) and how direct it was in other cases. The double standards in Lalu’s case and other cases are obvious.

  Now let us see how dangerous and biased Jyotsna Yagnik has been, working more like Manubhai Palkhiwala’s lawyer rather than as a judge.

  While delivering her judgment on 29 August she herself said that the ‘2007 Tehelka sting operation was used as evidence and it played a great part in the convictions’. The entire truth of that 2007 Tehelka sting can be read here in Tehelka lies.

   Now, let us get into the details of the so-called confessions of the people caught on camera. First we should all remember the context in which this sting operation was conducted. Tehelka reporter Ashish Khetan visited the people he caught on secret camera- and presented himself as an author aiming to write a book from the VHP point of view. He talked casually to these people on the riots- without telling them that the conversations were being recorded. This background will help a lot of people understand how these so-called confessions are boastful lies.

   Babu Bajrangi also says that Narendra Modi came to Naroda Patiya on the day of the massacre- i.e. February 28. But the official records show that Narendra Modi did not visit that place that day and they show that Narendra Modi was actually addressing a press conference at Circuit House Ahmedabad on the evening of 28 Feb. Note that Babu Bajrangi talking about Narendra Modi helping him are BOASTFUL LIES. He wants to boast to the Tehelka reporter (thinking him to be a man writing a book from VHP point of view) that he (Bajrangi) has access to the big boss Narendra Modi and that he (Bajrangi) is a big enough guy to get direct favors from Narendra Modi. There is absolutely nothing more in this. Actually, Tehelka also knew that he will indulge in empty boastful lies and so it fed such questions to him.

 

  As a matter of fact- none of these statements made by any of the 14 accused have any significance as evidence in any court of law in India. Confessions made intentionally on camera to police carry no value as evidence- only confessions made in court to a judge are regarded as evidence. These so-called confessions were made while casually talking to a person who secretly recorded the proceedings, and they are clearly boastful lies as we have seen the loopholes in them. Even if there were no inaccuracies- still the statements would have absolutely no value as evidence.   

   But Jyotsna Yagnik even termed the empty lies & boastful lies of people like Babu Bajrangi in the 2007 Tehelka sting as 'extra-judicial confessions' and considered them to convict the people despite the many loopholes and inaccuracies in them, which is highly dangerous.

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-09-04/ahmedabad/33583048_1_extra-judicial-confession-extrajudicial-confession-babu-bajrangi

 In an article titled “Naroda Patiya case: Mayaben Kodnani's fate hangs in balance” India Today reported:

   “The judgement against Kodnani had surprised many in the legal world as well as the Sangh Parivar as it overlooked crucial evidence in the case… Of the 170 witnesses in the case only 11 say that they saw Kodnani at Naroda Patiya around 9 am on February 28. And of these only two say that Maya Kodnani had taken part in the rioting. One of these two, who said she had seen Kodnani firing from a revolver, had in fact given a media interview in 2002 itself about the Naroda Patiya massacre but had not named Kodnani in it. Significantly, these 11 witnesses surfaced six and a half years after the incident thus giving grist to the charge they were tutored by anti-RSS activists.

   According to Natubhai Vaghela, a businessman and RSS supporter, the most questionable part is the time sequence given in the verdict which is just unbelievable. The judgement agrees with Kodnani that she was at Gujarat Vidhan Sabha's morning session in Gandhinagar on February 28 till 8.40 am.

    But, thereafter, it believes the witnesses' incredible story that Mayaben reached Naroda Patiya, a distance of 27 kms from Gandhinagar in just 20 minutes, instigated the Hindu mobs and came to Sola Civil Hospital scaling 24 kilometres of circuitous route through the city to see the dead bodies of the 59 Hindus and then scaled the same distance back to reach Narodagam (an area which is just 2.25 kms from Naroda Patiya where Muslims were killed too) between 10.30 and 11 am, and again instigated the Hindu crowd.

   So what the judgement says in effect is that Kodnani scaled a distance of 75 kilometres in 90 to 100 minutes and in between instigated Hindu mobs at two different places and also met the relatives of the 59 slain Hindus at the hospital. "Mayaben should have had feathers to fly to be able to scale that distance and do all that in less than 100 minutes," observed Patel. Interestingly, Kodnani had claimed that she started from Gandhinagar at 8.40 am for Sola Civil to meet the relatives of the 59 Hindus who were killed and left the place only at 11 am. Surprisingly, the evidence of four government personnel including an executive magistrate who said they had seen Kodnani at Sola till 11 am was overlooked in the verdict.

   But there are other details in the case that question the conspiracy theory. The scene in the Naroda area on Feb 28 morning was restricted to just stone pelting between Hindu and Muslim mobs till 10.30 am, when two Hindus were killed by Muslims in different incidents and one of them with horrid cruelty.

    "These two incidents sent the Hindu mobs into a reactive frenzy and led to the massacres at Naroda Patiya and Narodagram areas in close vicinity of each other," said lawyer Mitesh Amin.

   In the first case, rickshaw driver Ranjit Vanjara was pulled by a Muslim mob in a lane and killed. Even his eyes were gorged out. In the second incident, a frightened Muslim truck driver drove his truck through a Hindu mob killing a Hindu. Both these incidents happened between 10.30 and 11.30 am on that morning and are on police record. "Where does Mayaben figure in this?", asked a distraught Dr Surendra Kodnani, a medical practitioner like his wife who is moving heaven and earth to ensure that Mayaben gets bail on this strong evidence.”

 

   Dr R Balashankar, the then editor of weekly Organiser also wrote in Organiser dated 23 September 2012:

   “Maya Kodnani is just one such prey. The facts in the judgement in Maya Kodnani’s case are so startling that it has all the trappings of the Islamist tactics mentioned above. It is on record that on Feb 28 morning Kodnani delivered a speech at the Vidhan Sabha. Then she left at 9.15 am for Sola Civil Hospital where the charred bodies of the Hindu victims of Godhra were brought the preceding night. Here she was booed by incensed relatives of the Hindu victims. They accused her of not protecting the Hindus as a BJP person. She actually had to flee the spot with police escort around 11.30 AM. The police escorted her till Subhash bridge and from there she went to Meghaninagar Civil Hospital and from there to her house in Naroda. The judge has not called two Mamlatdars ( Mamlat is an executive magistrate ) and the police inspector of Sola police station, a policemen who had seen Kodnani till 11.15 am , to give their testimony.  Is this not intriguing?

   The statements of the four witnesses regarding Kodnani have been taken on record by the court in another similar case of the same day, the Narodagam case in which too she is an accused. This is again unusual. Evidence supporting her has been considered by one judge in one case but ignored by another judge (Jyotsna Yagnik) in an identical case…

   What’s more, the judge didn’t even see the CD containing record of Kodnani’s telephone calls on that day. This was one of the evidences considered by the Judge while convicting her.

   Clearly, notwithstanding the gravity of the Naroda Patiya massacre the judgement delivered by judge Jyotsna Yagnik, once a junior lawyer of known Congress leader Manubhai Palkhiwala reads like a monologue. The Congress lawyer is also acting principal of the IM Nanavati Law College in Ahmedabad which is owned by a prominent Congress-connected family.”

   Another article on the truth of Naroda Patiya can be read here. 

    To what extent Jyotsna Yagnik can go is seen from this. She  even could go to the extent of making a fool of herself by saying in effect that Kodnani went 75 kilometers in 90-100 minutes and instigated Hindus in 2 different places and also met relatives of the dead at Sola Civil Hospital. Jyotsna Yagnik also gave unheard of punishment of 28 years to a lady like Kodnani.

   Most importantly, Mayaben Kodnani and others objected to Jyotsna Yagnik seeing the Naroda Gram case. But Jyotsna Yagnik, instead of showing any norms of fairness refused to recuse herself. And in June 2013, 69 accused in Naroda gram case also moved the HC seeking change of judge as she was biased.

   Truly, Jyotsna Yagnik’s dangerous biased judgments must be challenged and she should be dismissed on grounds of ‘incapacity’ and ‘bias’- playing with others’ lives for getting a promotion from UPA masters and behaving like a Congress lawyer.

(NOTE: A very scholarly, very important, must-read article with details of the judgment with observations is here. http://dharmanext.blogspot.in/2014/06/guilty-until-proven-innocent-note-on.html )