Will go into SIT report if Jafri's petition maintainable: HC

Gujarat High Court today said it would examine the findings of SIT's closure report only if it found the review petition about 2002 Gujarat riots filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of the slain Congress leader Ehsan Jafri, maintainable.
Justice Sonia Gokani said this today during the hearing of Jafri's revision petition against a lower court order which gave a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and 58 others over their alleged roles in the riots.
The court said if it felt after hearing the arguments that revision petition was not maintainable, there will be no need to go into the findings of the SIT report.

The court also observed that since 2006, when Zakia Jafri first approached the police with a complaint against Modi (who was then Chief Minister) and others, much had changed, and several more factors will have to be considered.
Advocate Mihir Desai, Jafri's lawyer, said the order of the metropolitan magistrate was fit for revision. The fact that trial in Gulberg society massacre case was over did not make any difference, he said.
Desai was responding to the defence lawyers' argument that revision petition was untenable as verdict in the Gulberg case was pronounced last year.

In December 2013, a magisterial court had rejected Jafri's plea seeking to make Modi and others accused in the case for allegedly hatching the 'larger criminal conspiracy' behind the riots.

The Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team, which looked into Zakia's complaint, filed a closure report on February 8, 2012, absolving Modi and others.
Advocate Desai today said what SIT did was more of an inquiry and not investigation, and it did not deal with all the grievances of the complainant. Jafri's complaint was not just about Gulberg incident, he said.
HC would next hear the case on March 31.
On February 28, 2002, following the Godhra train burning incident, 68 people including Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress MP, were killed by a mob at Gulberg society here as riots swept many parts of Gujarat.

In June last year, a special court pronounced judgement in Gulberg society case, convicting 24 people.