No evidence of ‘larger criminal conspiracy’ on part of State in 2002 Gujarat Riots, says SC; rejects Zakia Jafri's plea

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Ehsan Jafri challenging the clean chit given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the 2002 Gujarat riots. The apex court said that there was no evidence to suggest “larger criminal conspiracy” on part of the State which led to Gujarat riots of 2002 that ensued the Godhra train massacre. “We uphold the decision of the Magistrate in accepting the final report dated 08.02.2012 submitted by the SIT as it is and rejecting the protest petition filed by the appellant (Zakia Jafri)”, Justice Khanwilkar said reading out the operative portion of the judgment. “We don’t countenance the submission of the appellant regarding infraction of rule of law regarding investigation and the approach of the Magistrate and the High Court in dealing with the final report. Accordingly, we hold the appeal is devoid of merits and deserves to be dismissed in aforementioned terms”, Justice Khanwilkar said. The judgement further said, “The materials collected during the investigation do not give rise to strong or grave suspicion regarding hatching of larger criminal conspiracy at the highest level for causing mass violence across the State against the minority community and more so, indicating involvement of the named offenders and their meeting of minds at some level in that regard.” Also Read: 2002 Gujarat riots: SC upholds SIT clean chit to PM Modi, dismisses Zakia Jafri’s plea The Bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar also appreciated the SIT members for the “indefatigable work done”, and having “come out with flying colours unscathed.” “At the end of the day, it appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the State of Gujarat along with others was to create sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge. The falsity of their claims had been fully exposed by the SIT after a thorough investigation,” the judgment said. Such officials need to be in the dock for “keeping pot boiling” with ulterior motive, the Court underlined. “Intriguingly, the present proceedings have been 305 pursued for last 16 years including with the audacity to question the integrity of every functionary involved in the process of exposing the devious stratagem adopted (to borrow the submission of learned counsel for the SIT), to keep the pot boiling, obviously, for ulterior design. As a matter of fact, all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law,” the Court said. Congress leader and former MP Ehsan Jafri was among the 68 people killed at Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society during violence on 28 February, 2002, a day after the Godhra train burning. Zakia Jafri had challenged the SIT’s clean chit to 64 people, including Modi who was Gujarat chief minister in 2002. Her petition had challenged the High Court’s 5 October, 2017, order rejecting her plea against the SIT decision. On 9 December last year, the apex court had reserved its verdict on the plea. Except for Zakia Jafri’s petition, nobody had raised a finger against it for the probe conducted in the 2002 Gujarat riots, the SIT had said during the hearing in the top court. Zakia Jafri filed a petition in the apex court in 2018. The plea also maintained that after the SIT gave a clean chit in its closure report before a trial judge, Zakia Jafri had filed a protest petition which was dismissed by the magistrate without considering “substantiated merits”. With inputs from agencies Read all the Latest News , Trending News ,  Cricket News , Bollywood News , India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.