Thursday, May 5 2005 09:15 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Ahmedabad: The Godhra inquiry commission yesterday (May 4, 2005) rejected the application seeking to summon former President K R Narayanan for questioning but said it would like to go through the contents of his letter to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The Nanavati-Shah Commission rejected the application filed by advocate Mukul Sinha saying there was no need to summon Narayanan in connection with his statements to the media on the Gujarat riots.

However, it said that the letters written by Narayanan to Vajpayee could be sent across to the commission. The letters were written between February 28, 2002 and March 10, 2002.

Narayanan had said in his media interview that he had written several letters to Vajpayee urging him to take prompt action during the post-Godhra riots and also suggested the deployment of Army.

Narayanan said he had asked Vajpayee, to deploy Army in Gujarat to control the communal riots and to give them powers to open fire at rioters.

Earlier, the Commission had sent a letter to the former President asking whether he would like to appear before the Commission and give his opinion on the riots.

Narayanan in reply, sent an acknowledgment to the Commission through a letter dated April 8, 2005 wherein he had admitted of having made such statements to the media, but did not specify if he would appear before the Commission.

The Commission also put aside advocate Sinha's application to summon Vajpayee saying it would first await the copy of the letters that Narayanan had written to him and decide on the fate of the application on June 2.