The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed a plea filed by Zakia Jafri, the wife of slain MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the Special Investigation Team’s (SIT) clean chit to 64 people, including then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, in the 2002 riots case.
A court bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar upheld the Special Metropolitan Magistrate’s order rejecting Jafri’s protest petition against the SIT’s closure report.
It also upheld the Gujarat high court order and noted that Zakia Jafri’s plea is devoid of merit.
Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was among the 68 people who were killed in Ahmedabad’s Gulberg Society on February 28, 2002, a day after a coach of the Sabarmati Express was burnt at Godhra. Nearly 59 people had died in the fire which triggered communal riots in Gujarat.
Jafri had moved to the Top Court after the SIT headed by former CBI chief R Raghavan had conducted the probe under the direction of the apex court and found that there was no prosecutable evidence against the then Gujarat CM Modi.
Zakia Jafri filed a plea on December 9, 2021, demanding an investigation into a bigger conspiracy behind the 2002 Gujarat riots and contended that SIT did not conduct a thorough probe of all the pieces of evidence which suggested a larger conspiracy.
The apex court bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar, however, did not substance in the allegations and dismissed her plea.
Former Chairman, Delhi Minorities Commission Dr Zafarul-Islam Khan called the SC decision ‘despicable’.
2/2 went scot free. Dismembering, burning Jafari alive was worst during these riots. Yet no justice done because judges seldom have guts to stand to rulers. Yet there is a Supreme Judge who will one day judge in all these acts of miscarriage of justice. https://t.co/oqMVfxM2DV— Zafarul-Islam Khan (@khan_zafarul) June 24, 2022
(Inputs from agencies)
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Rabia Shireen is a Staff Reporter at The Cognate.
