...... 14 SITUATION IN GUJARAT 3.4 By its proceedings of 30th June, 2003, the NHRC asked the Chief Secretary, Gujarat to send a copy of the judgment of the trial court to the Commission and inform it within seven days as to what action, if any, was the State planning against the order of acquittal. The Chief Secretary, let alone responding, did not even acknowledge the communication of NHRC dated 30th June, 2003. The State of Gujarat also remained indifferent to the suggestion made for filing an appeal against the order of acquittal. 3.5 Since, copy of the judgment was not sent to the NHRC and even the record of the case was not made available to its Special Rapporteur, the Commission, by its proceedings dated 6th July, 2003, invoking its powers under Section 13 of Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, requested the Trial Court to furnish copies of the judgment and the record of the case to its team which was sent to Vadodara for the said purpose. On 8th July, 2003, the team collected the record from the Trial Court and returned to New Delhi and submitted its report. 3.6 As no response from the Chief Secretary was received to the communication dated 30th June, 2003, after waiting for over a month, and taking notice of the report submitted by its team and other relevant material, including the statement of Ms. Sheikh Zahira Bibi, made before the Commission seeking assistance of the Commission for retrial of the case and obtaining legal advice, the NHRC, on 30th July, 2003, taking recourse to the provisions of Section 18(2) and other enabling provisions contained in the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, proceeded to file an SLP before the Hon’ble Supreme Court. In this petition the Commission raised not only issues of miscarriage of justice as a result of acquittal of all the accused in the Best Bakery Case but larger issues touching upon the credibility of criminal justice delivery system; protection of witnesses and victims of crime; the postulates of a fair trial and the need to lay down guidelines, in the face of case after case failing, particularly critical cases, on account of witnesses turning hostile at the trial, so as to restore credibility of criminal justice delivery system, which had come under serious challenge and cloud. NHRC also prayed for an order to “reinvestigate” the Best Bakery Case by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and for its “retrial” outside Gujarat. The SLP was listed for preliminary hearing on 8th August, 2003. 3.7 Having remained quiet all this time, on 6th August, 2003, the State of Gujarat filed an appeal in the High Court of Gujarat against the order of acquittal and informed the Supreme Court about it when the SLP came up for consideration. The Supreme Court was pleased to describe the State appeal as only an “eye-wash” and the State undertook to amend the Memo of Appeal. Even the Second Memo of Appeal was found by the Supreme Court to be “inadequate”. The State undertook to amend the Second Memo of Appeal also. 3.8 That the Hon’ble Supreme Court was pleased to treat the larger issues raised by the NHRC in its SLP, as matters of larger public interest and converted the SLP into Public NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION