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New Delhi: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) told the Supreme Court on Thursday that no one pointed a finger against it for the investigation conducted into the 2002 Gujarat riots, except in a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, which led to a larger conspiracy during the violence in the state. accused of.
Zakia Jafri, wife of Congress leader Ehsan Jafri, who was killed during the violence at Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, has challenged the clean chit of the SIT to 64 people including Narendra Modi, who was the Chief Minister of Gujarat during the riots. State.
A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar reserved judgment on Zakia Jafri’s plea against the Gujarat High Court’s October 5, 2017 order dismissing her plea against the SIT’s decision.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the SIT, told the bench that the apex court should support what the trial court and Gujarat High Court have done on Jafri’s plea, otherwise it is an endless exercise which will continue due to some motive of the social worker. . Petitioner number two in the petition is Teesta Setalvad.
I think your lordship should support what the trial court and the high court have done otherwise it is an endless exercise which will always continue only because of some motive of petitioner number two (Setalvad), Rohatgi told the bench, Including justices. Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar concluded their arguments.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for the petitioners, referred to the work done by Setalvad’s organizations and said that it is unfair to defame Gujarat by portraying us as someone who is anti-Gujarat.
Very few times in the history of the court do cases of this moment happen in front of you. This used to happen on some earlier occasions. This is yet another occasion when the glory of the law is being tested. Sibal said, and here, I am not interested in targeting anyone, but as your authority knows, under criminal law you take cognizance of offenses and you do not take cognizance of the offender, Sibal said.
If any crime has been committed, it is the job of the SIT to find out who the culprits are, he said.
So, if no one did it and it’s all done without anyone with the content in front of you, we can close it. But if you feel that crimes have been committed then who is responsible is a matter of investigation, Sibal said.
Rohatgi said the top court gave the task to the SIT and the team overworked.
He said that apart from this petitioner, no one raised a finger against us.
I have submitted and I repeat that it is Petitioner No.2 (Setalvad) who is running this case for the last 10 years. Rohatgi said that if you want, there was ample opportunity to say something at the relevant time.
He said that now after almost 20 years, the petitioners want the court to order further investigation in the matter.
Now, he says do it again. Don’t know who will watch, who will watch. Now a new SIT will come, obviously you do not trust this SIT. So we should make another SIT. I don’t know, we should get Scotland Yard now because these fellows are from CBI. CBI is here, police was here, he said.
I don’t know from where we should get. Mylords, the idea is to boil the pot only for the ulterior purposes of petitioner number two (Setalvad), Rohatgi said.
Zakia Jafri’s lawyer had earlier argued that her 2006 complaint was a larger conspiracy where bureaucratic inaction, police complicity, hate speech and violence were perpetrated.
Former MP Ehsan Jafri was among 68 people killed in the violence that took place a day after the Godhra train incident.
The S-6 coach of the Sabarmati Express was torched on February 27, 2002 in Godhra, in which 59 people died and in 2002 there were riots in Gujarat.
On February 8, 2012, the SIT filed a closure report giving a clean chit to Modi, now the prime minister, and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was “no prosecutable evidence” against them.
Zakia Jafri had filed a petition in the apex court in 2018 challenging the Gujarat High Court’s October 5, 2017 order dismissing her plea against the SIT’s decision.
The petition also said that after the SIT had given a clean chit in its closure report before a trial judge, Zakia Jafri filed a protest petition, which was dismissed by the magistrate without considering the “certified merits”.
The High Court, in its October 2017 order, had said that the SIT probe is supervised by the Supreme Court.
However, it partly allowed his petition, so far as the demand for further inquiry was concerned, stating that he may seek further inquiry from a Magistrate’s Court, a Division Bench of the High Court, or an appropriate forum including the Supreme Court. can demand.
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