Dyaneshwar Gawade
MAYA Kodnani, former Gujarat minister, who was sentenced to 26 years in jail in the 2002 Naroda Patia riot case, on Wednesday, was granted regular bail by the Gujarat High Court on the ground of her ill-health.
She was granted bail for three months in November and allowed to leave a prison in Ahmedabad. Her condition deteriorated and she was hospitalized in February.
In her bail plea, Kodnani had submitted that her appeal challenging the judgment of special court is pending before the Gujarat High Court since December 2012. The appeal is not likely to be heard in near future, considering this she should be released on bail, the plea said.
The Naroda Patia massacre had taken place a day after the Godhra train burning incident of February 27, 2002.
58-year-old Kodnani, a state legislator from the BJP, was granted 26-year life imprisonment by SIT court in August 2012 for the Naroda Patiya massacre, among the bloodiest episodes of the three-day riots in which over 1,000 people were killed, most of them Muslims. She allegedly played a leading role in the massacre of 95 people – 30 men, 32 women and 33 children.
She was arrested in March 2009.
Kodnani, a gynecologist-in 2007-was appointed minister for women and child development in the state government, and then led by Narendra Modi as Chief Minister.