Guj HC order on plea against Modi clean chit likely on Aug 9

The Gujarat High Court is likely to pronounce on August 9 its order on a petition by the widow of slain former MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging a lower court order upholding the SIT clean chit to the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in 2002 riots cases.
Justice Sonia Gokani today kept pronouncement of order in the case on August 9 after the counsel for Supreme Court- appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) filed its written submission in the case.
The petitioner's lawyer had also filed a written submission before the court last month, days after arguments from both the sides concluded.

The court was hearing a criminal review petition moved by Zakia Jafri and activist Teesta Setalvad's NGO Citizen for Justice and Peace challenging the lower court order upholding the SIT clean chit on the alleged larger criminal conspiracy behind the 2002 riots.
The petition demands to make Modi and 59 others as accused on charges of criminal conspiracy behind the riots.
Ehsan Jafri was one of the victims of the riots when a mob set his house in the city's Gulberg Society on fire.

Sixty-eight people were killed in the riots on February 28, a day after the Godhra train carnage.

The SIT had informed the court during the course of hearing that its report challenged by Jafri was investigated under the watchful eyes of the apex court and was largely accepted by all.
It submitted that the lower court, where the case was first heard, had looked into all aspects of allegations to conclude that there was no further need to investigate the matter from larger conspiracy angle.
Zakia's lawyer had told the court that the magistrate who accepted the SIT's closure report did not even consider other options like rejecting the report, or order fresh probe.
In December 2013, a metropolitan court had rejected Jafri's plea to book Modi and others for criminal conspiracy, after which she moved high court in 2014.

The SIT had on February 8, 2012, filed a closure report and given clean chit to Modi and others in the case.