Justice Nanavati, who headed the commission to investigate the riots against Sikhs in 1984 and the Godhra Massacre of 2002 passed away on Saturday. According to family relatives, the former Supreme Court judge died of heart failure around 1:15 p.m. on Saturday in Gujarat. On July 19, 1979, he was appointed as a permanent judge of the Gujarat High Court, and on December 14, 1993, he was moved to the Orissa High Court. With effect from January 31, 1994, Nanavati was appointed Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court.
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From September 28, 1994, he served as Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. In 2014, Justices Nanavati and Akshay Mehta presented Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel with their final report on the 2002 riots. The violence claimed the lives of over 1,000 people, the majority of whom were members of the minority community.
The panel was established in 2002 by then-chief minister Narendra Modi to investigate the riots that erupted when two coaches of the Sabarmati Express train were set ablaze at the Godhra railway station, killing 59 ‘karsevaks.’
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The NDA administration nominated Nanavati to investigate the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. The Nanavati commission had only him as a member. During the proceedings, the panel did not call Gujarat’s then-CM, Narendra Modi. In 1958, Justice Nanavati became a member of the Government Pleaders’ Panel and enrolled as an attorney in the Bombay High Court. In July 1979, he was appointed a permanent judge of the Gujarat High Court, and in 1993 he was transferred to the Orissa High Court.
