Ahmedabad Judge Quit After 2002 Violence: 'I was Suffocated, Could Not Take it Anymore'

NEW DELHI: A judge in Ahmedabad’s City Civil and Session Court from October 2002 to early April 2003 Himanshu Trivedi told The Citizen that he left because of a variety of reasons, including “feeling suffocated because of the anti-Muslim atmosphere” in the city. He said he could not “take it any more.”

Trivedi who is now in New Zealand was speaking to The Citizen over the phone. He said that he and his daughter actually saw a police jeep distributing fuel to burn down a Muslim shop. He said that he was on the fourth floor and could see the sole Muslim drycleaners shop in his locality being looted and gutted. He said, “my daughter asked me you are a lawyer what are you doing about this, why are you not stopping this?” He told her, “what can I do, I cannot do anything.” He said that this feeling of “impotency made me feel suffocated.”

Trivedi said that the bias against the Muslims was very visible to him during those days in the courts. “There was no written order of course, but it was clear that the instructions were to make sure that the Muslims were made to stay as second class citizens,” he said. He said “everyone knew of the 72 hours that were given to loot and kill, except the Gujarat bureaucracy.” He said he left as “I could not accept this anymore, I had taken the oath in allegiance to the Indian Constitution not to any party or individual.”

Trivedi said he was a colleague of Jyotsna Yagnik, the judge who later convicted Maya Kodnani and Babu Bajrangi in the Naroda Patiya case. He said he resigned on moral and ethical grounds and then left for New Zealand. He told The Citizen that there were not many taking that position at the time.

Trivedi has posted on his Facebook page support for activist Teesta Setalvad who has been in the news recently. He wrote, “Teesta Setalvad. Hats off. I have always admired you and your courage and outspokenness on these issues. I also take this opportunity to state that I am indeed pained (and I am the one who had QUIT Gujarat’s Judiciary. I was a district cadre judge in Ahmedabad City Civil and Sessions Court – once a colleague of the bravest judge Ms Jyotsna Yagnik who handed out the judgments to Babu Bajrangi and Kodnani and now lives in fear of her life) … because they (the State of Gujarat) wanted us (the judges and the judiciary) of Gujarat to be acting against the minority community (albeit with no written orders but DEFINITELY communicated in loud and clear messages to us). I could not be part of it as I was sworn to the Constitution of India …”

Trivedi said that “we kept hearing things” that worried and disturbed him. He repeatedly said there was no written order, but that enough was said to make the rules clear. He said he heard and saw things that made him decide to move his daughter and family out of the country where religion was not made the basis of discrimination.

Trivedi sounded passionate, and clearly the memories of 2002 still evoke an anger that was palpable over the telephone as well.