SC dismisses Zakia Jafri’s plea challenging SIT’s clean chit to Modi, 63 others
Highlight
- SC dismisses Jafri’s protest petition against closure report filed by SIT
- The top court said, there is no merit in Jafri’s appeal and it should be dismissed
- Ehsan Jafri was among 68 people killed at Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002
Gujarat riots 2002 caseThe Supreme Court on Friday dismissed Zakia Jafri’s plea challenging the SIT’s clean chit to 64 people, including the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. The Supreme Court upheld the order of the Gujarat High Court, holding that Zakia Jafri’s appeal has no merit and should be dismissed.
A bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar upheld the special metropolitan magistrate’s order dismissing Jafri’s protest petition against the closure report filed by the SIT. She is the wife of late MP Ehsan Jafri.
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Ehsan Jafri was among 68 people killed at the Gulbarg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, a day after a coach of the Sabarmati Express caught fire in Godhra in which 59 people were killed and riots broke out in Gujarat.
The apex court had on October 26 said that it would like to look into the closure report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) giving clean chit to 64 persons and the justification given by the magistrate’s court while accepting the same.
Sibal had earlier argued that Jafri’s complaint was “a larger conspiracy where bureaucratic inaction, police complicity, hate speech and violence were perpetrated”.
On February 8, 2012, the SIT filed a closure report giving a clean chit to Modi, now the prime minister, and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was “no prosecutable evidence” against them. Zakia Jafri had filed a petition in the apex court in 2018 challenging the Gujarat High Court’s October 5, 2017 order dismissing her plea against the SIT’s decision.
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