In what may be a make or break day for Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, the Ahmedabad metropolitan court will on today pronounce its decision on the Hindutva leader’s alleged role in the Gulberg Society massacre during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
According to reports, the court will also decide if the SIT probe report on the Gulberg Society massacre should be made public or not.
The court will also pass its order on whether or not the SIT, which has reportedly given a clean chit to Modi, should be given more time to submit the pertinent documents before it.
On Monday, the trial court looking into Zakia Jafri’s plea seeking Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) report on post-Godhra riots of 2002 stayed its order till today. The court will today decide whether three main petitioners - Zakia Jafri, Teesta Setalvad and Mukul Sinha - are entitled to a copy of SIT’s report.
Zakia Jafri is the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The SIT, which has so far opposed the sharing of its report with the complainant, has sought time till March 8 to submit documents pertaining to the case.
The SIT counsel had argued that Setalvad and Sinha have no locus to demand a copy of the judgement as they are not the aggrieved in the case.
Meanwhile, the counsel for Setalvad and Sinha had countered the SIT’s arguments by claiming that being a public document, the report has to be made public.
The report, it is claimed, deals with all the cases investigated by the SIT, which include charges against chief minister and over 50 individuals responsible for killing innocents in the post-Godhra riots.
Charges against Modi say that he allowed the dead bodies of karsewaks killed in the Sabarmati express in Godhra to be brought to Ahmedabad, that he deliberately delayed action and called the army too late. It is also alleged that he knew about the threat to life of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri but didn’t take any action, among others.
The SIT argued that the report—widely surmised to be a closure document on the Gublerg Society massacre—need not be made public to rights groups at the moment and that the court could decide on that later.
Meanwhile, it is still not clear whether the report filed by SIT gives a clean chit to Modi. The court is yet to examine the report.
The Gujarat Chief Minister then exuded confidenceand tweeted Swami Vivekanda’s words, “I stand for truth. Truth will never ally itself with falsehood.”
The Supreme Court had asked the SIT to investigate whether the chief minister failed in his responsibilities and whether there was a larger conspiracy behind the 2002 riots.
The Supreme Court had then asked amicus curiae Raju Ramchandran to independently assess the SIT report.
The Supreme Court on 12 September 2011, after going through Ramachandran’s report, had refrained from passing any order in the case and asked the SIT to submit its final report in the magisterial court in Ahmedabad.
The SIT almost took five months after the Supreme Court order to file its final report in the case.
The Supreme Court had asked the magisterial court to hear the petitioners before closure summary in the case, even if the report was in favour of Modi and others
