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Minority groups challenge Srikrishna report rejection in Supreme Court

More than 300 minority groups from Maharashtra today jointly moved the Supreme Court challenging the state government's decision to reject the Justice B N Srikrishna Commission report indicting the Shiv Sena for the 1992-93 Bombay riots.

Banded together under the banner of ''Action Committee for the Implementation of Srikrishna Commission Report'', the groups prayed to the apex court to quash as null and void the Maharashtra government's ''memorandum of action to be taken'' on the report. By that memorandum, the Shiv Sena-Bharatiya Janata Party government had rejected the report as ''biased''.

The public interest petition also sought the striking down as unconstitutional and ultra vires the sub-section 3 (4) of the Commissions of Inquiry Act insofar as it conferred unfettered and unbridled discriminatory authority on the state government to reject the report in part or criticise its findings on selective basis to suit the convenience and policies of the government.

Addressing the media in New Delhi, representatives of the committee, including former Union minister Chand Mahal Ibrahim, said the Maharashtra government's act was unprecedented.

''To reject a report by a sitting high court judge on the grounds that it is biased is an insult to the entire judiciary,'' said Maulana Zaheer Abbas, petitioner and general secretary of All India Ulema Council.

Counsel Anees Suhrawardy said the petition was filed today and a plea made for an urgent hearing.

The petition also urged that the court entrust further action on the report to an independent agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation.

It also prayed that the court direct payment of compensation to the next of kin of all those who died or were injured or suffered losses in the Bombay riots which broke out following the demolition of the disputed Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi structure in Ayodhya in December 1992.

UNI

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