NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Jakia Jafri to file a fresh petition challenging the SC-appointed Special Investigation Team's "clean chit" to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and others in her complaint accusing them of abdicating constitutional duty to stop the 2002 communal riots.
A bench comprising Justices P Sathasivam, Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai set aside the trial court's order dismissing Jafri's protest petition. She had said that in her protest petition, she could not cite all the grounds for her challenge to the "clean chit" as she had not been given two reports that SIT submitted to the apex court on May 12, 2010 and November 17, 2010.
The bench agreed with Jafri's counsel Kamini Jaiswal and asked the SIT to give copies of the reports to her to facilitate filing of the protest petition afresh before the trial court.
Gujarat additional advocate general Tushar Mehta said the accused, who stood convicted in six sensitive cases investigated by the SIT, were not given copies of the probe report either. Moreover, he said in another case, probe into which was monitored by the apex court (Sohrabuddin fake encounter case), the sealed cover reports submitted to the court by the investigating agency was not shown to anyone.
But amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran said Jafri's complaint case was different from all other cases and urged the court to make a one-time exception with a caveat that this concession should not be taken as a precedent.
In her 2006 complaint, Jafri had alleged that mobs were allowed to go on rampage killing members of the minority community and complained that the CM and others had refused to take timely action which made them liable for the riots. Her husband and Congress leader Ehsan Jafri was killed by a mob at Gulbarg society.
On her complaint, the apex court had asked the R K Raghavan-headed SIT to "look into" the complaint. The SIT had said it found no prosecutable evidence against Modi and others to file charge sheet against them in the riot cases. The SC then asked the SIT to file a closure report before the trial court concerned with permission to Jafri to file a protest petition after getting all documents from SIT.
Supreme Court permits Jafri to file fresh petition against Modi clean chit
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Supreme Court permits Jafri to file fresh petition against Modi clean chit
