The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a petition challenging the clean chit given by a Special Investigation Team in the 2002 Gujarat riots, reported Live Law.
Zakia Jafri, the wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, had challenged the Special Investigation Team’s clean chit to 64 people, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was the chief minister of Gujarat in 2002.
Ehsan Jafri 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.
Jafri’s counsel has argued that there was “a larger conspiracy” involving bureaucratic inaction, police complicity and hate speech that led to the violence.
During the hearings in the case, Jafri had alleged that the Special Investigation Team was involved with some of the accused persons in the riots case. She had also alleged that the team had ignored crucial evidence and filed a closure report without conducting a proper investigation. She has demanded an inquiry against the team.
In 2013, Jafri had filed a petition opposing the closure report of the investigation team. However, the magistrate, who had received the report, had 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, which said it would examine the closure report.
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