Apex Court Dismisses Plea Against SIT Clean Chit To Modi

On Saturday, Supreme Court judge Justice P S Narasimha said that the amount of litigation in India is unimaginable and it will take a long time to complete the existing pendency (Representational Image)

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea of Zakia Jafri, the wife of slain MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) clean chit to 64 people, including then Chief Minister Narendra Modi, in the 2002 Gujarat riots case.

A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar upheld the Special Metropolitan Magistrate’s order rejecting Jafri’s protest petition against the closure report filed by the SIT.

The top court upheld the Gujarat High Court order and said Jafri’s plea is devoid of merit.

Ehsan Jafri was among the 68 people killed in Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, a day after a coach of the Sabarmati Express was burnt at Godhra, killing 59 people and triggering riots in Gujarat.

The bench headed by Justice Khanwilkar and also comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar, was hearing Jafri’s appeal challenging the October 5, 2017 Gujarat High Court order upholding the Ahmedabad Metropolitan Magistrate Court’s decision to accept the SIT’s closure report, which gave a clean chit to then Gujarat chief minister Modi and 63 others in riots-related cases.

In 2018, Zakia Jafri filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the High Court’s October 5, 2017 order rejecting her plea against the decision of the SIT. The plea also maintained that after the SIT gave 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 “substantiated merits”.

Her plea also said the Gujarat High Court “failed to appreciate” the petitioner’s complaint which was independent of the Gunbarrel Society case registered at Meghaninagar Police Station. The High Court, in its October 2017 order, had said the SIT probe was monitored by the Supreme Court.

On February 8, 2012, the SIT had filed a closure report, giving a clean chit to Modi, and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was “no prosecutable evidence” against them. (PTI)