Girish Thakurlal Nanavati (17 February 1935 – 18 December 2021) was an Indian judge who was a Justice of the Supreme Court of India. After his retirement, he headed two commissions inquiring into the

1984 Anti-Sikh riots The 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots, also known as the 1984 Sikh Massacre, was a series of organised pogroms against Sikhs in India following the assassination of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Government estimates project that about 2,800 Sikhs ...

and the Godhra riots.

Early life

Born in

Jambusar Jambusar is a town and a municipality in Bharuch district in the Indian state of Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar p ...

, Gujarat, on 17 February 1935, Nanavati was the eldest of twelve children. In his family, his father, grandfather and uncle were all

lawyers A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicitor, ...

. Judge Nanavati studied at St. Xaviers College in Mumbai. After finishing his education in the arts, he enrolled in the Government Law College in

Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

to receive his bachelor's and master's degrees in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

Career

Nanavati enrolled as an advocate in the Bombay High Court in 1958. Circumstances forced him to return to Gujarat from Mumbai when the

bifurcation Bifurcation or bifurcated may refer to: Science and technology * Bifurcation theory, the study of sudden changes in dynamical systems ** Bifurcation, of an incompressible flow, modeled by squeeze mapping the fluid flow * River bifurcation, the ...

of the Bombay state in 1960 left him a hard choice. His wish to practice at the prestigious Bombay High Court went unfulfilled and left for Ahmedabad. His practice in Ahmedabad was very low key. He dealt with a smattering of revenue cases, but his true potential was realized when he began to practice criminal cases. He received and accepted an offer to become a

public prosecutor A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tria ...

in 1964, which became a turning point in the young man's career. At that time, high court judges, not the government, appointed prosecutors. This began a fifteen-year stint prosecuting cases before the high court. He was appointed a permanent judge to the

Gujarat High Court The Gujarat High Court is the High Court of the state of Gujarat. It was established on 1 May 1960 under the ''Bombay Re-organisation Act, 1960'' after the state of Gujarat split from Bombay State. The seat of the court is Ahmedabad. The pre ...

in 1979. Fourteen years later he was transferred to the high court in

Orissa Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of S ...

. A year later, in 1994, he was appointed chief justice of the High Court of Orissa. He was transferred again eight months later to the

Karnataka High Court Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

. In March 1995 he was appointed a judge to the Supreme Court of India by the Congress government. Judge Nanavati retired on 16 February 2000.

Nanavati Commission

Nanavati was appointed by the National Democratic Alliance government to probe the

. He was the sole member of the Nanavati commission. The commission incriminated

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party but often simply the Congress, is a political party in India with widespread roots. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British E ...

politicians Sajjan Kumar and

Jagdish Tytler Jagdish Tytler (born Jagdish Kapoor; 17 August 1944) is an Indian politician and former Member of Parliament. He has held several government positions, the last being as Minister of State for Overseas Indian Affairs, a post from which he resigne ...

. Nanavati has stated that evidence indicated that it was a "lapse on part of the civil administration" not to call the

Indian Army The Indian Army is the land-based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), who is a four- ...

in a timely fashion, "resulting in large-scale rioting and loss of lives".

Godhra riots

In March 2002, Judge Nanavati was appointed to head a two-man commission investigating the 2002 Godhra riots, replacing Judge K. G. Shah. Throughout the proceedings and in its final report of November 2014, the commission concluded that there had been no serious lapses by either the police, or the state administration in dealing with the riots. The report itself has yet to be made public.

Personal life and death

Nanavati died from cardiac arrest on 18 December 2021, at the age of 86 at his home in Ahmedabad.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nanavati, G.T. 1935 births 2021 deaths Hindu law jurists Justices of the Supreme Court of India Gujarati people Chief Justices of the Karnataka High Court 20th-century Indian judges People from Bharuch district Judges of the Orissa High Court Judges of the Gujarat High Court Chief Justices of the Orissa High Court