The Supreme Court on Tuesday objected to allegations made by Zakia Jafri, the wife of Congress leader Ehsan Jafri, about collaboration between the Special Investigation Team and some accused persons in the 2002 Gujarat riots case, NDTV reported.
Before the Supreme Court, Zakia Jafri has challenged the Special Investigation Team’s clean chit to the 64 people, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was the chief minister of Gujarat in 2002.
The petitioner’s husband was among the 69 people who were killed when a mob went on a rampage in Ahmedabad’s Gulberg society on February 28, 2002, pelting stones and setting fire to homes.
On Tuesday, a bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar was responding to the claim made by senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who represents Zakia Jafri.
During the hearing, Sibal said that there was “glaring evidence of collaboration” between the investigation agency and some accused persons.
“The political class became collaborators,” Sibal said, according to Live Law. “This is a stark story about a collaborator with accused.”
The advocate noted that the offenders were not named in the complaints. The petitioner’s counsel claimed that this omission showed the “collaboration of machineries of the state”.
The bench said that collaboration was a strong word used in this case as the Special Investigation Team was constituted by the court, Live Law reported.
“You [Sibal] are attacking the manner of investigation done by SIT?” the court asked. “It is the same SIT that had filed chargesheets in other cases and they were convicted.”
But Sibal pointed out that the accused were not prosecuted by the Special Investigation Team and nothing was found on record to prove the inquiry.
During Thursday’s hearing, Sibal had claimed that there were call records to prove that the police officials and mobs were identifying the houses of Muslims when the riots broke out in 2002.
On Wednesday, Zakia Jafri had claimed that the Special Investigation Team had ignored crucial evidence and filed a closure report without conducting a proper investigation. She demanded an inquiry against the Special Investigation Team.
The team had submitted its closure report on February 8, 2012, saying there was no prosecutable evidence against accused persons, including Modi, in the riots cases.
In 2013, when Jafri had filed a petition opposing the closure report, the magistrate, who had received the report, upheld it and dismissed her petition.
She had then moved the Gujarat High Court. In 2017, the High Court upheld the magistrate’s decision and dismissed her plea.
Jafri then moved the Supreme Court that said it would examine the closure report.
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