Gujarat court rejects Zakia Jafri's plea to gain access to SIT report on 2002 riots

Ahmedabad, Mar 3 (ANI): A magisterial court here on Saturday rejected Zakia Jafri's plea to gain access to the Supreme Court appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) report on the 2002 Gulbarg Society massacre case.

"The court has rejected our petition today. Their next decision would be taken only after the papers arrive on March 15. It has been rejected till the arrival of the interim materials on March 15," said S. N. Vohra, Jafri's counsel.

The court had earlier deferred its order on petition to get access to a copy of the report. The court had asked the SIT, probing the post-Godhra riots, to furnish all documents on which it has based its final report on Jafri's complaint against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in the 2002 Gulbarg Society massacre case.

The court rejected the petition on the grounds that the documents of the SIT report would be submitted in the court by March 15, and only after that they would take the final decision on the plea of the applicant.

Meanwhile, Shamshad Pathan, counsel for the Citizens for Justice Group, said that they would file another application to gain access to the report.

"We have filed a new application today as from the beginning the court has had a tendency to reject all applications from the very beginning. Today we have asked through an application that the court should whether these are public, confidential or private documents. Under the Indian Evidence Act, it has been clearly stated that all the nature of each document has to be revealed," said Pathan.

"So we have demanded its status to be declared under the provisions of the said act. Secondly, under the provisions of the act, if it is a public document then anyone has the right to see the report," he added.

The SIT, on February 8, filed a closure report on the complaint of Zakia Jafri, reportedly giving a clean chit to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

Jafri in her complaint had sought prosecution of Modi, along with 57 others, for aiding and abetting communal riots. Ehsan Jafri was among the 69 persons killed in the Gulbarg Housing society riots.

On September 12 last year, the Supreme Court had refused to pass any order on Modi's alleged inaction in containing riots in 2002 and left it to the concerned magistrate's court to decide the course of action against him on the basis of the SIT report.

In the petition, Zakia had alleged that Modi and 62 top government officials deliberately refused to take action to contain the state-wide riots, triggered by the February 27, 2002 Godhra train carnage.

The SC had further said that in case the magistrate decides to drop proceedings against Modi and others, he has to hear the plea of Zakia.

Jafri had told the apex court that a proper probe should be carried out by the SIT, headed by former CBI chief R K Raghavan, into her allegations of inaction and various acts of omission and commission by Modi and others during the riots.

The apex court in 2009 had earlier handed over the task of probing the case to SIT which submitted its report in 2011. (ANI)