Top court rejects Zakia Jafri’s plea challenging SIT's clean chit to 64 people, including then CM Narendra Modi in 2002 Gujarat riots

The apex court today dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit given to the then chief minister Narendra Modi within the 2002 Gujarat riots by the Special Investigation Team (SIT).

A bench headed by Justice A M Khanwilkar upheld the Special Metropolitan Magistrate's order rejecting Jafri's protest petition against the closure report filed by the SIT. 

The top court upheld the Gujarat judicature order and said Jafri's plea is empty of merit.

Ehsan Jafri was among 69 people killed during the violence at the Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002. Zakia Jafri has challenged the SIT's clean chit to 64 people including Narendra Modi. 

Jafri had approached the apex court after the SIT headed by former CBI chief R Raghavan had found that there was no prosecutable evidence against the Gujarat CM. The SIT had conducted the probe under the direction of the apex court. 

On December 9, 2021, Zakia Jafri filed a plea soliciting for an investigation into a much bigger conspiracy behind the Gujarat riots.

She had contended that SIT didn't conduct a radical probe of all the pieces of evidence which suggested a bigger conspiracy but the apex court bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and C T Ravikumar failed to substantiate the allegations and dismissed her plea.

For several days, senior attorney Kapil Sibal led the arguments con to the Gujarat High Court's decision on behalf of Zakia Jafri. Senior Attorney Mukul Rohatgi requested the rejection of Jafri's petition while defending the SIT investigation. 

SIT has opposed the plea of Jafri saying there's a sinister plot behind the complaint to probe the "larger conspiracy" behind the 2002 Gujarat riots and therefore the original complaint by Jafri was directed by social activist Teesta Setalvad, who levelled allegations just to stay the pot boiling.

Setalvad had also challenged an October 2017 order of the Gujarat state supreme court refusing to reopen the closure report of the SIT. 

The SIT, appointed by the apex court, had conducted the investigation into the case and gave a clean chit to Modi, and other top politicians and bureaucrats. The clean chit was given citing an absence of "prosecutable evidence" against them. 

Challenging the Gujarat High Court's order dated October 5, 2017, that upheld SIT's clean chit, Zakia had approached the Supreme Court alleging a "larger conspiracy" within the riots. 

The Gujarat state supreme court had upheld the magisterial court's order, accepting the SIT's closure report. 

Earlier, Zakia had approached the Gujarat court in 2014 after the magisterial court rejected the petition challenging the SIT report. 

In her petition to the highest court, Zakia had stated: "Grant ad-interim order to Special Investigation Team (SIT) to hold out an additional investigation under section 173(8) of Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) in relation to the petitioner's complaint dated June 8, 2006, and therefore the evidence placed before the learned through the protest petition dated April 15, 2013."