Zeenews Bureau
Ahmedabad: A local court here on Monday deferred till Wednesday (February 15) its order on a petition by social activists Teesta Setalvad and Mukul Sinha seeking copies of the closure report of the SIT in the 2002 post-Godhra riots case.
The court of Metropolitan Magistrate MS Bhatt also gave the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) a month’s time to file all documents based on which the closure report was prepared.
The SIT had filed the closure report in the court in a sealed cover last Wednesday.
During the hearing today, the SIT opposed the plea of Teesta Setalvad and Mukul Sinha seeking copies of the closure report.
The SIT’s counsel told the court that Teesta and Sinha have no locus standi in the case.
The SIT said only Zakia Jaffery - widow of former Congress MP Ehsaan Jaffrey who was among the 69 people killed at the Gulberg Society during the communal frenzy in 2002 - was entitled to being given a copy of the report.
Teesta, on her part, argued that all parties must be given copies of the report before a decision is taken in the case.
The SIT report reportedly cleared Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s name among 57 others for their role in 2002 riots, saying it did not have "prosecutable evidence".
The Supreme Court had asked the SIT to investigate whether there was a larger conspiracy behind the 2002 riots in which more than 1,200 people were killed.
A complaint in this regard was filed by Teesta and Zakia Jaffery.
SIT after questioning many people, including Modi, had filed a report in the apex court in which it had reportedly said that there was no prosecutable evidence against the chief minister.
The apex court had then asked amicus curie Raju Ramchandran to independently assess the SIT report.
