Ahmedabad: A metropolitan magistrate`s court
here Wednesday reserved the order on Zakia Jaffery`s plea that the Special Investigation Team`s report on her complaint regarding Gujarat riots be opened and read out.
Magistrate M S Bhatt heard arguments on behalf of Zakia
-- the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffrey who was
killed in the 2002 riots -- and the SIT at length before
reserving the order for March 3.
SIT has submitted to the court the final report on
Zakia`s complaint alleging complicity of Gujarat Chief
Minister Narendra Modi, other top politicians, police officers
and bureaucrats in the 2002 riots, in a sealed cover.
Zakia`s lawyers today argued that SIT had no right to
oppose the request to open the report, as the report had
become "a public document" after it was submitted to the
court. Anyone can access it, and Zakia, being a complainant,
more so; the SIT had no say in this.
Further, the lawyers said, they failed to understand why
the prosecution (SIT) was opposing their application as it was
SIT`s duty to bring the real culprits to book.
But SIT lawyer R S Jamaur opposed the plea, saying that
it had not submitted a complete report. It was for the court
to read the report first, and only when the court decided to
close the complaint it was required to give a copy to the
original complainant as per the Supreme Court`s September 12
2011 order, Jamaur said.
The SIT lawyer also said that the legal grounds on which
Zakia was seeking access to the report were not applicable, as
SIT had conducted investigation upon a complaint, and not upon
an FIR.
The court had already given SIT time till March 15 to
submit all the related material, so it was just a matter of 15
days, he said, adding that the investigators were likely to
submit the material within a week.
The Supreme Court appointed the SIT to conduct inquiry on
the complaint filed by Zakia and later directed it to submit
the report before the magistrate`s court here.
PTI
