The Supreme Court on Monday adjourned till November 26 hearing a petition moved by Zakia Jafri against Prime Minister Narendra Modi being exonerated in a case related to allegations of a “larger conspiracy” behind the 2002 Gujarat riots, PTI reported.
Zakia Jafri is the wife of Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed during the riots. At least 69 people, including Ehsan Jafri, were killed when a mob went on a rampage in Ahmedabad’s Gulberg society on February 28, 2002, pelting stones and setting homes on fire.
The Gujarat High Court in October 2017 had upheld a 2012 judgement by a magistrate’s court that accepted the Special Investigation Team’s closure report giving Modi and 58 others a clean chit. The High Court had said there was no “larger conspiracy” behind the riots as alleged in Zakia Jafri’s petition.
But Justice Sonia Gokani allowed Zakia Jafri to file a petition in the magisterial court or the Supreme Court and demand a new investigation.
On November 13, a Supreme Court bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Deepak Gupta said Zakia Jafri’s Special Leave Petition will be heard on Monday as the court had not gone through it in detail, PTI reported. CU Singh, appearing on Zakia Jafri’s behalf, said the petition needed to be heard as it related to the “larger conspiracy behind the Gujarat riots”.
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