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

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

. 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 The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hin ...

Early life

Born in Jambusar, Gujarat, on 17 February 1935, Nanavati was the eldest of twelve children. In his family, his father, grandfather and uncle were all lawyers. 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 — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

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

Career

Nanavati enrolled as an

advocate An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However, ...

in the

Bombay High Court The High Court of Bombay is the high court of the states of Maharashtra and Goa in India, and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. It is seated primarily at Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), and is one of the ol ...

in 1958. Circumstances forced him to return to Gujarat from Mumbai when the bifurcation 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 ( ; Gujarati: 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 (per t ...

. 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 or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...

cases. He received and accepted an offer to become a public prosecutor 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 prese ...

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 Sch ...

. 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

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

Nanavati Commission

Nanavati was appointed by the

National Democratic Alliance National Democratic Alliance (NDA) () is a Centre-right politics, centre-right to Right-wing politics, right-wing and Conservatism, conservative Indian big tent political alliance led by the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It was foun ...

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 "k ...

. 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 Em ...

politicians

Sajjan Kumar Sajjan Kumar (born 23 September 1945) is an Indian politician. He was elected to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of the Parliament of India from Outer Delhi as a member of the Indian National Congress but resigned from the primary membership o ...

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