The Gujarat High Court on Monday commuted the death sentence of 11 convicts in the 2002 Godhra train-burning case to life imprisonment. It also upheld the life sentence awarded by the special SIT court to 20 others in the case.

The bench of Justices AS Dave and GR Udhaari observed that the state and the Railways had failed to maintain law and order and ordered them to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to the families of those who had died in the Sabarmati Express carnage.

The HC was hearing appeals over the Special Investigation Team (SIT) court’s order acquitting 63 people and convicting 31 in 2011. Among the 31 convicted, 11 had been sentenced to death while 20 were awarded life-imprisonment. All the convicts had appealed against their conviction.

In 2011, the 63 people the HC had acquitted included Maulana Hussain Umarji, who was dubbed as the “mastermind” of the attack by the Gujarat Police. The trial court was set up by the Supreme Court after the SIT submitted its report in 2009.

Nearly 60 passengers including many “kar sevaks” returning from Ayodhya were killed in coach S6 of the Sabarmati Express when a mob torched the compartment near Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002. The incident sparked state-wide communal violence that killed over 1,200 in two months.

Last week, the Gujarat High Court gave then state CM Narendra Modi and 60 others a clean chit in the case – citing lack of “prosecutable evidence” against them.