The State Cabinet on Thursday rejected the Justice B.K. Somasekhara Commission of Inquiry’s report into the 2008 church attacks in the State, which had exonerated the Hindutva organisations, after referring to their involvement in its interim report.
The report had also given a clean chit to the then Bharatiya Janata Party government.
Briefing presspersons after the Cabinet meeting, Law Minister T.B. Jayachandra said the decision to reject the report was taken on the basis of the recommendation by the Law Department, which studied the report in detail. He said it was unacceptable that a judicial commission contradicts the findings of its interim report in the final report.
Apart from rejecting the commission’s report, the Cabinet has also directed the Home Department to implement all the nine recommendations made by the National Human Rights Commission, including bringing the guilty to book, providing protection to churches, and suitable compensation to victims, besides training police on handling communal incidents.
Mr. Jayachandra pointed out that both Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and himself, who had earlier worked as leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, had been consistently opposing the Somasekhara Commission of Inquiry report for the alleged contradictions.
Set up in September 2008, the commission, headed by former High Court Judge B.K. Somasekhara, had 300 sittings and examined 754 witnesses during its inquiry into the series of attacks on churches across the State. The commission had submitted its interim report in September 2009 and final report in January 2011.
Meanwhile, the Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party termed the Cabinet’s decision to reject the report as an attempt to politicise an old issue. Rejecting the report amounts to doubting the integrity of the judge alleged the party media coordinator S. Prakash.
