Guj riots: SC upholds SIT clean chit to Modi, others

‘Proceedings aimed to keep pot boiling, obviously, for ulterior design’

The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the Special Investigation Team (SIT) clean chit to the then Gujarat chief minister and incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots case. The petition filed by Zakia Jafri alleged that Mr Modi asked the top ranking officer in the state administration and police to let people vent their anger in the aftermath of the burning of the S6 coach of the Sabarmati Express train at the Godhra Station on February 27, 2002, that led to the death of 59 kar sevaks, including larger conspiracy, police inaction and the targeting of Muslims.

Upholding the SIT report that nailed the “falsity” and the attempts to “sensationalise and politicise” the matters by the former state home minister late Haren Pandya, IPS officers Sanjiv Bhat and R.B. Sreekumar, that Mr Modi, as the serving chief minister, had asked the officials to let people vent their anger, a bench comprising Justices A.M. Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C.T. Ravikumar said that after a thorough investigation by the SIT, the claims of being an eye-witness to such illegal instructions being issued in the said meeting held on February 27, 2002, is false.

The court held that the entire proceedings, relating to the allegations of larger conspiracy, including inaction or delayed action by the state machinery during the 2002 riots, going on for the last 16 years, were aimed to “keep the pot boiling, obviously, for ulterior design”. The court said, “At the end of the day, it appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the state of Gujarat, along with others, was to create sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge. The falsity of their claims had been fully exposed by the SIT after a thorough investigation.”

In a candid message to such litigants who abuse the process for advancing their “ulterior designs”, the judgment said, “As a matter of fact, all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law.”

At the end of the day, it appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the state of Gujarat, along with others, was to create sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge

— SC Bench

Any edifice of the “larger criminal conspiracy” at the highest level, as alleged by Zakia Ahsan Zafri based on such false claims, the court said, “On such false claims, the structure of larger criminal conspiracy at the highest level has been erected. The same stands collapsed like a house of cards, aftermath thorough investigation by the SIT.”

Ms Zafri is the widow of a former Congress member of Parliament who too was killed along with 67 others during the attack on the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad by the violent mobs in the wake of the Godhra incident of February 27, 2002. The court condemned both Pandya and Mr Bhat for their “felicity”. The judgment by the three-judge bench authored by Justice Maheshwari said, “We hasten to add that it is only because of the ultra-sensational revelation projected by Sanjiv Bhatt and Haren Pandya, who unabashedly claimed to be privy to the utterances made by the then chief minister in an official meeting, the constitutional functionaries and this court was required to move into action, taking serious note of the same.”

Further, the judgment says, “But after a thorough investigation by the SIT the falsity of such a claim has been fully exposed on the basis of credible indisputable materials collated by the SIT during the investigation in that regard.”

Appreciating the SIT for exposing the “falsity of the claims” by Pandya and Mr Bhat, the judgment says that the “SIT has been able to collate materials indicative of the amount of hard work and planning of the concerned state functionaries in their attempt to control the spontaneous evolving situation of mass violence across the state of Gujarat”.

Rejecting the appeal by Ms Zafri and describing its allegations as “far-fetched and an attempt to undo and undermine” the “humungous” task done by the SIT with “sincerity, objectivity and dispassionately”, the court said that since the top court had assigned the task to the SIT, so any questioning of the investigation by the SIT would be in the “nature of questioning the wisdom of this court”.

Ms Jafri had challenged the October 5, 2017 order of the Gujarat high court upholding the magistrate court order rejecting Ms Jafri’s protest petition challenging the SIT report, giving clean chit to top political and state functionaries for alleged larger conspiracy and inaction during the 2002 post Godhra Gujarat riots.

The SIT report absolving Mr Modi and 63 others, including top police officers, was filed on February 8, 2012. Ms Jafri filed a protest petition challenging the final SIT report on April 15, 2013, which was rejected by the magistrate court on December 26, 2013.