G. T. Nanavati

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Girish Thakurlal Nanavati
14th Chief Justice of the
Odisha High Court
In office
31 January 1994 – 27 September 1994
Preceded byBanwari Lal Hansaria
Succeeded byVallabhdas Aidan Mohta
Justice of the Supreme Court of India
In office
6 March 1995 – 16 February 2000
Personal details
Born(1935-02-17)17 February 1935
Jambusar, Gujarat, British Raj
Died18 December 2021(2021-12-18) (aged 86)
Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Girish Thakurlal Nanavati (17 February 1935 – 18 December 2021) was an Indian judge who was a justice of the

Godhra riots
.

Early life

Born in

St. Xaviers College in Mumbai. After finishing his education in the arts, he enrolled in the Government Law College in Mumbai to receive his bachelor's and master's degrees in law.[1]

Career

Nanavati enrolled as an advocate in the Bombay High Court in 1958.[citation needed] Circumstances forced him to return to Gujarat from Mumbai when the bifurcation of the Bombay state in 1960 left him a hard choice. His wish to practice at the prestigious Bombay High Court went unfulfilled and left for Ahmedabad.[citation needed]

His practice in Ahmedabad was very low key. He dealt with a smattering of revenue cases, but his true potential was realized when he began to practice

high court judges, not the government, appointed prosecutors. This began a fifteen-year stint prosecuting cases before the high court.[citation needed
]

He was appointed a permanent judge to the

Orissa. A year later, in 1994, he was appointed chief justice of the High Court of Orissa. He was transferred again eight months later to the Karnataka High Court. In March 1995 he was appointed a judge to the Supreme Court of India by the Congress government. Judge Nanavati retired on 16 February 2000.[2]

Nanavati Commission

Nanavati was appointed by the

Nanavati commission.[3] The commission incriminated Indian National Congress politicians Sajjan Kumar and Jagdish Tytler. Nanavati has stated that evidence indicated that it was a "lapse on part of the civil administration" not to call the Indian Army in a timely fashion, "resulting in large-scale rioting and loss of lives".[citation needed
]

Godhra riots

In March 2002, Judge Nanavati was appointed to head a two-man commission investigating the 2002 Godhra riots, replacing Judge K. G. Shah.[4] Throughout the proceedings and in its final report of November 2014, the commission concluded that there had been no serious lapses by either the police, or the state administration in dealing with the riots.[5][6] The report itself has yet to be made public.[7]

Personal life and death

Nanavati died from cardiac arrest on 18 December 2021, at the age of 86 at his home in Ahmedabad.[8][9]

References

  1. ^ Bhatt, Sheela (17 February 2005). "I haven't absolved Cong: Nanavati". The Rediff Special. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015.
  2. ^ "Former Judges: Hon'ble Mr. Justice G.T. Nanavati". Supreme Court of India. Archived from the original on 12 May 2011.
  3. ^ Kumar, Vinay (9 August 2005). "Credible evidence against Tytler: Nanavati". The Hindu. Archived from the original on 8 September 2012. Retrieved 20 September 2006.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  4. Indian Express. 18 November 2014. Archived
    from the original on 18 November 2014.
  5. ^ "No police lapse in Gujarat riots: Justice Nanavati". Rediff. 18 May 2003. Archived from the original on 23 May 2003.
  6. ^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (25 February 2012). "Gujarat 2002: What Justice for the Victims?". Economic & Political Weekly. 47 (8): 77–80. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015.
  7. ^ Tripathi, Rahul (4 July 2015). "UN rapporteur Christof Heyns urges government to make Nanavati commission report on 2002 riots public". The Economic Times. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015.
  8. ^ "Justice Nanavati, head of panels that probed 1984 and 2002 riots, dead". The Indian Express. 19 December 2021. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  9. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 18 December 2021.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: others (link
    )