Zakia Jafri can’t file petition against SIT report

A local magisterial court on Tuesday ruled that Zakia Jafri and Teesta Setalvad had lost the right to file a protest petition against the special investigation team’s (SIT) report on the riots of 2002. The report had given a clean chit to chief minister Narendra Modi against Zaki’a allegation that the CM and 62 others had a hand in the 2002 riots.

Zakia (whose husband, former Congress MP Ehsan Zafri, was killed in the Gulbarg society massacre) and her supporter Teesta have been fighting a legal battle to implicate Modi and senior officials of the state for their alleged complicity in the riots.

However, the magisterial court’s ruling on Tuesday is likely to start a fresh round of legal battle against the Gujarat chief minister.

“We are shocked at the court’s verdict as it has given its judgement when a petition on the same subject is pending before the Supreme Court. The magisterial court has delivered its verdict without waiting for the hearing in the Apex Court scheduled for December 3,” said Teesta while talking to DNA. “We will challenge the order,” she added.

Metropolitan magistrate BJ Ganatra gave his verdict on Tuesday on the ground that Zakia was given sufficient time to file a protest petition but she had not done so. The court said that Zakia can now make only oral submissions.

In February this year, the Supreme Court-appointed SIT had submitted a mammoth report running into 25,000 pages on its investigation into Zakia’s petition and had given a clean chit to Modi and others.

According to the Supreme Court’s ruling on the SIT report, Zakia had to file a protest petition if she was not satisfied by the SIT probe, within two months of the report’s submission. In May this year, the SIT had provided a copy of the report to Zakia after which she was asked to file a protest petition within the stipulated period of two months. However, she has not filed a protest petition so far.
The metropolitan court did not entertain the argument of Jafri’s lawyer SM Vohra that they had approached the Supreme Court seeking clarification on certain issues and that the next date of hearing in the apex court was set for December 3. He had sought time from the court till the hearing in the case was over in the Supreme Court.

The SIT was formed by the Supreme Court to investigate Zakia Jafri’s allegation that Modi, several ministers of his cabinet, police officers and members of some rightwing organizations, had played a nefarious role in the 2002 riots.