The Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal against clean chit given by a special investigation team to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others in the 2002 Gujarat riots case. The apex court accepted the SIT report and held that the plea was an attempt to “keep the pot boiling”.
The verdict passed by a three-judge bench dismissed the protest petition filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of late Congress leader Ehsan Jafri and held that there is no reason to question the merits of the SIT investigation.
In its 308 page verdict, the bench of justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar not only dismissed the petition, but also rapped the petitioner and activist Teesta Setalvad for the allegations.
“The argument of the appellant was bordering on undermining the integrity and sincerity of the members of the SIT,” observed the court, adding that since the SIT was set up specifically by the Supreme Court, the submissions by Jafri were “far-fetched and an attempt to undo and undermine the integrity of the SIT”.
The court also said these allegations were also in the nature of questioning the wisdom of the court.
In addition to this, the apex court noted that the proceedings were pursued for 16 years, and several applications were filed to “keep the pot boiling , for ulterior design”.
“As a matter of fact, all those involved in such abuse of process need to be in the dock,” the court said.
READ | Gujarat riots clean chit to PM: Two decades of legal battle and what’s next
“The SIT had formed its opinion after considering all the materials collated during the investigation. The question of further investigation would have arisen only on the availability of new material/information in connection with the allegation of a larger conspiracy at the highest level, which is not forthcoming in this case. Hence, the final report, as submitted by the SIT, ought to be accepted as it is, without doing anything more,” noted the bench.
Jafri’s petition had called for an investigation into the larger conspiracy of deliberate inaction by the Gujarat administration, police and fire service. She had claimed that despite multiple calls made to senior officials and police, no action was taken by the administration to control the rioting or stop the attack on Gulbarga society. She had also alleged that the SIT had ignored the allegations of a larger conspiracy and the role played by senior officials.
The protest plea had relied on a sting operation conducted by Tehelka magazine and statements made by former IPS officers Sanjiv Bhatt, Haren Pandya and RB Sreekumar.
The bench noted that the SIT had conducted an investigation into the claims made by the officers and had found them to be false. The SIT report had stated that the officers were not present at the meeting where they claimed that the then chief minister had allegedly “given instructions”.
READ | SC confirms SIT clean chit to PM Modi in Gujarat riots case, rejects Zakia Jafri’s plea
“On such a false claim, the structure of a 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,” commented the bench.
The court also noted that “it is only because of the revelation projected unabashedly claim ultrasensational by Sanjiv Bhatt and Haren Pandya, who had 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 in to action taking serious note.”
However, the bench accepted that the allegations indicated that there may have been failure of some officials to take immediate action, but such lapses can be explained due to the exingencies of the situation.
“Overrunning of state administration is not an unknown phenomenon,” observed the court, which has said that such lapses would not indicate a criminal conspiracy.
“Misgovernance or failure to maintain law and order during a brief period may not be a case of failure of constitutional machinery in the context of tenets embodied in Article 356 of the Constitution. There must be credible evidence regarding a state-sponsored breakdown of the law and order situation; not spontaneous or isolated instances or events of failure of state administration to control the situation,” the bench held.
“Breakdown of the law and order situation including the alleged inaction of duty holders, owing to spontaneous mass violence, cannot be a safe measure to infer as being a part of the criminal conspiracy at the highest level of political dispensation unless there is clear evidence to so conclude regarding meeting of the minds of all concerned and their concerted efforts to commit or promote commission of such crime,” it further said.
Giving a clean chit to the Gujarat administration and the investigation conducted by the SIT, the bench noted that there was “no material worth the name to even create a suspicion” of criminal conspiracy.
“Inaction or failure of some officials of one section of the state administration cannot be the basis to infer a preplanned criminal conspiracy by the authorities of the state government or to term it as a state-sponsored crime (violence) against the minority community. The SIT had noted that inaction and negligence of the erring officials has been taken note of at the appropriate level including by initiating departmental action against them,” the court held.