Girish Thakurlal Nanavati (17 February 1935 – 18 December 2021) was a judge of the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India is the supreme judiciary of India, judicial authority and the supreme court, highest court of the Republic of India. It is the final Appellate court, court of appeal for all civil and criminal cases in India. It also ...

. 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 w ...

and the 2002 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 States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of ...

, 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 is qualified to offer advice about the law, draft legal documents, or represent individuals in legal matters. The exact nature of a lawyer's work varies depending on the legal jurisdiction and the legal system, as wel ...

. 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 ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

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, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

Career

Nanavati enrolled as an

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. List of country legal systems, Different countries and legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a ba ...

in the

Bombay High Court The High Court of Bombay is the High courts of India, high court of the States and union territories of India, states of Maharashtra and Goa in India, and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. It is seated primarily ...

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 for ...

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 Ahmedabad ( ), also spelled Amdavad (), is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 ...

. 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 In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definiti ...

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 adversarial system, which is adopted in common law, or inquisitorial system, which is adopted in civil law. The prosecution is the legal party responsible ...

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. Establ ...

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

Orissa Odisha (), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is a state located in Eastern India. It is the eighth-largest state by area, and the eleventh-largest by population, with over 41 million inhabitants. The state also has the thir ...

. 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 The High Court of Karnataka (''IAST: Karnāṭaka Ućća Nyāyālaya'', commonly referred to as the Karnataka High Court and formerly known as the Mysore High Court, is the highest judicial authority of the Indian state of Karnataka. The court ...

. In March 1995 he was appointed a judge to the

by the Congress government. Judge Nanavati retired on 16 February 2000.

Nanavati Commission

Nanavati was appointed by the

National Democratic Alliance The National Democratic Alliance (NDA; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Rāṣṭrīya Lokatāntrik Gaṭhabandhan'') is an Indian big tent Political group, multi-party political alliance, led by the country's biggest political party, the Bharatiya Janata Pa ...

government to probe the

. He was the sole member of the

Nanavati commission The Justice G.T. Nanavati commission was a one-man commission headed by Justice G.T. Nanavati, a retired Judge of the Supreme Court of India, appointed by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government in May 2000, to investigate the " ...

. The commission incriminated

Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC), colloquially the Congress Party, or simply the Congress, is a political parties in India, political party in India with deep roots in most regions of India. Founded on 28 December 1885, it was the first mo ...

politicians

Sajjan Kumar Sajjan Kumar (born 23 September 1945) is a former Indian politician and convicted murderer. He was a prominent leader of Indian National Congress. He was elected to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India from Outer Delhi as ...

and

Jagdish Tytler Jagdish Tytler (born Jagdish Singh 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 (Independent Charge) for Overseas Indian Affairs, ...

. 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 (IA) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Land warfare, land-based branch and largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Commander-in-Chief, Supreme Commander of the Indian Army, and its professional head ...

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 20th-century Indian judges Chief justices of the Karnataka High Court Chief justices of the Orissa High Court Gujarati people Hindu law jurists Judges of the Gujarat High Court Judges of the Orissa High Court Justices of the Supreme Court of India People from Bharuch district