New Delhi: Indicating that it will monitor the trial of riot cases in Gujarat, the Supreme Court on August 8 issued notice to the state government on the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) petition and asked it to provide adequate protection to the victims, witnesses in the cases and their relatives.

It also converted the NHRC petition, seeking retrial in Best Bakery and some other cases outside Gujarat into a public interest litigation (PIL) on improving the criminal justice system in India.

Giving two weeks time to the state government to provide details of the statements made by the witnesses in the Best Bakery case both before police and the trial court, a Bench comprising Chief Justice V N Khare, Justice S B Sinha and Justice Arun Kumar took note of the appeal filed by the government in the High Court against acquittal of all 21 accused in the riot case.

PTI