In an important decision, the Maharashtra government has decided to put a request forward to the Bombay High Court that there is a need of speedy trials in the Mumbai riots cases. The government has decided to request the High court to set up special courts for accelerating the trails in the cases related to the 1992-93 Mumbai riots.

On Wednesday, the state cabinet also approved setting up a high-level committee headed by the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) to speed up the declaration of the cases. A senior state official said:

The state Government decided to request the Bombay High Court to set up special courts so that the guilty are punished quickly.

Earlier, CM Vilasrao Deshmukh had said that the state government would set up special courts to try the pending riot cases as mentioned in the Justice Srikrishna Commission report. The Maharashtra government had also said that it would reopen cases against the Shiv Sena leaders indicted by Srikrishna Commission report on 1993 riots in Mumbai.

The high-level committee will be headed by the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and Principal Secretary (Law and Judiciary), the Joint Commissioner of Police concerned and the government pleader will be there as member in the committee.

According to the report, the committee will have to see the reason behind the delay of the trial of riot cases those are still pending in court. The committee would prepare the list of these pending cases and would bring it to the notice of the High Court.

Later, the committee would request the High Court to transfer such cases to the special courts to the speedy trails of these pending cases. The state cabinet has also decided to form a team of special prosecutors who would review the progress of the cases two times in a month.

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