The Gujarat High Court on October 5 rejected Zakia Jafri’s plea challenging a magistrate order upholding a SIT’s (special investigation team) clean chit to then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others on allegations of larger conspiracy in connection with the 2002 post-Godhra riots. The High Court, however, allowed Ms. Jafri to approach higher fora for further investigation in the case. Ms. Jafri, wife of slain ex-MP Ehsan Jafri, and activist Teesta Setalvad’s NGO Citizen for Justice and Peace had moved the criminal review petition, demanding that Mr. Modi and 59 others — including senior police officers and bureaucrats — be made accused for allegedly being part of a conspiracy that facilitated the riots.
It also sought the High Court’s direction for fresh investigation into the matter. The hearing of the petition before Justice Sonia Gokani concluded on July 3. Congress leader Ehsan Jafri was among 68 people who were killed at the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad when a mob attacked it on February 28, 2002, a day after the Godhra train burning incident that set off riots in the State.
The SIT submitted before the High Court that its probe was conducted under the Supreme Court’s watchful eye, and its report was largely accepted by all. The lower court looked into all aspects of allegations to conclude that there was no further need to investigate the matter from the angle of “larger conspiracy”, it said.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi addresses the media in Gandhinagar on March 27, 2010 after appearing before the Special Investigation Team probing the 2002 Gujarat riots. Ms. Jafri’s lawyer, Mihir Desai, argued in the High Court that the magistrate, while accepting the SIT’s closure report, did not even consider other options such as rejecting the report or ordering a fresh probe. The lower court ignored the Supreme Court’s guidelines and did not consider signed statements of witnesses, which suggested that there was a conspiracy.
The magistrate also ignored submissions of key witnesses such as (former IPS officers) Sanjiv Bhatt, R.B. Sreekumar and Rahul Sharma, and ignored the findings of Tehelka magazine’s sting operation, Mr. Desai told the HC. The riots could have been prevented, and certain ministers, police officers and bureaucrats abetted the violence, he alleged. The SIT’s closure report, filed on February 8, 2012, gave a clean chit to Mr. Modi and others. In December 2013, the metropolitan magistrate’s court in Ahmedabad rejected Ms. Jafri’s petition against the report, after which she moved the High Court in 2014.
