2002 Gujarat riots: SC to hear Zakia Jafri's plea on October 26
Oct 05, 2021
New Delhi [India], October 5 : The Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned for October 26 the hearing of a plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit given by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several others in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
A Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar granted the adjournment after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Jafri, sought adjournment.
The Bench said that no adjournment requests will be entertained on future dates.
Sibal said, "I am personally embarrassed. There are 23,000 pages of record, we were to get some convenience compilation. It has come up suddenly."
To this, the Bench said the matter was notified earlier. Sibal said he be granted one adjournment. The aoex court said it will be heard on October 26.
Ehsan Jafri was among 69 people killed in the Gulbarg Society massacre.
The SIT, appointed by the apex court, had conducted the investigation into the case and gave a clean chit to then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, other top politicians and bureaucrats. The clean chit was given citing lack of "prosecutable evidence" against them.
Challenging the Gujarat High Court's order dated October 5, 2017 that upheld SIT's clean chit, Zakia approached the Supreme Court alleging a "larger conspiracy" in the riots. The Gujarat High Court had upheld the magisterial court's order, accepting the SIT's closure report.
Earlier, Zakia had approached the Gujarat High Court in 2014 after the magisterial court rejected the petition challenging the SIT report.
In her petition to the Supreme Court, Zakia has stated: "Grant ad-interim order to Special Investigation Team (SIT) to carry out further investigation under section 173(8) of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in regard to the petitioner's complaint dated June 8, 2006 and the evidence placed before the learned through the protest petition dated April 15, 2013."
