The Nanavati-Mehta Commission probing the 2002 Godhra train inferno and the riots thereafter is unlikely to seek another extension of its term which is scheduled to end on June 30 this year.
With just two months to go for its present term to end, sources said that the two-judge commission is now in the final stages of preparing its report on the 2002 riots in Gujarat.
The commission comprising Justice GT Nanavati and Justice Akshay Mehta has already been given as many as 19 extensions since it was formed soon after the riots in Gujarat following the killing of 58 kar sewaks in the Sabarmati Expresss inferno at Godhra on February 27, 2002.
The two-judge commission had submitted its interim report on the train burning incident in September 2008 and the final report expected by June-end would deal with the widespread riots in the State during the bandh called in protest against the killing of the kar sewaks at Godhra.
Sources in the Commission told The Pioneer on Tuesday that writing of the final probe report is currently going on.
“We are now working with the June-end deadline in mind,” a Commission source revealed without, however, confirming or denying whether another extension of its term would be sought or not.
Admitting a public interest litigation (PIl) last year on the Government’s increasing expenses on the commission, the Gujarat High Court had taken a serious view of the repeated extensions granted to the two-judge commission.
The functioning of the commission had been delayed due to several reasons, including the controversy over the issue of summoning Chief Minister Narendra Modi on the basis of cell phone call records which, lawyers of the NGOs insisted, indicated his connivance with many prominent rioters.
The final phase of the commission’s functioning could begin last year only after the apex court refused to direct the riot panel to summon the Chief Minister for questioning, as demanded by the NGO Jan Sangharsh Manch which espoused the cause of the riots victims and survivors.
The two-judge commission’s interim report in 2008 had concluded that burning of the Sabarmati Express at Godhra was part of a pre-planned conspiracy incited by Pakistan’s ISI, a theory advocated then by Chief Minister Narendra Modi and then Union Home Minister lK Advani.
The commission’s final report giving Modi a clean chit some time later this year would enable him to settle down on the centre-stage of national politics in the run-up to the lok Sabha elections in 2014 or earlier.