New Delhi: Former Supreme Court judge Justice Girish Thakorlal Nanavati breathed his last at the age of 86 on Saturday, news agency PTI reported.
He had investigated the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and the 2002 Godhra riots.
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The former Supreme Court judge died of cardiac arrest in Gujarat at 1:15 pm on Saturday, PTI quoted family members as saying.
Born on February 17, 1935, Girish Nanavati was enrolled as an advocate in the Bombay High Court on February 11, 1958.
He became a permanent judge of the Gujarat High Court with effect from 19 July 1979 and was transferred to the Orissa High Court on 14 December 1993.
Nanavati was appointed as the Chief Justice of the Orissa High Court with effect from January 31, 1994. Then, he was transferred as the Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court with effect from September 28, 1994.
He was appointed as a judge of the Supreme Court with effect from March 6, 1995 and retired on February 16, 2000.
Notably, Nanavati was tasked by the NDA government to investigate the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. He was the only member of the Nanavati Commission.
His commission, in its final report on the 2002 Gujarat riots, had given a clean chit to the then chief minister Narendra Modi and his council of ministers as well as the police, BJP, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal.
The commission was appointed by Narendra Modi in 2002 to investigate the riots that took place after two coaches of the Sabarmati Express train were burnt near the Godhra railway station, in which 59 kar sevaks were killed.
In 2014, Justices Nanavati and Akshay Mehta submitted their final report on the 2002 riots to Anandiben Patel, the then Gujarat Chief Minister. More than 1,000 people, mainly from the minority community, were killed in the violence.
(with agency input)
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