SC Rejects Plea for riot cases Monitoring of Guj.Govt

New Delhi: A month after the Supreme Court recused itself from monitoring the probe into Jakia Jafri’s complaint against chief minister Narendra Modi and others, the Gujarat government on Tuesday said it was time to end the SC’s eightyear-old supervision of the probe and trial in nine sensitive riot cases.
Appearing for the state, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said since most of the chargesheets have been filed and trials were at an advanced stage, it would be against judicial discipline if the apex court continued monitoring the cases.
A special bench of Justices D K Jain, P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam said the monitoring had been going on for last eight years and a few more months would harm no one. “But, we will keep the request in mind,” the bench said.
The court also refused to entertain Special Investigation Team’s application seeking to go public to issue a clarification on certain allegations made by suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who also had alleged that Modi had ordered the police to go slow against the mob targeting Muslims after the train burning incident.
The SIT in its application had said that it investigated Bhatt’s allegations against the investigating team and found it to be baseless. However, the court refused to issue any direction saying the issue was not being heard by it.
“We did not even take into account the affidavit filed by the IPS officer and another person,” the bench told SIT member and senior police officer Y C Modi. Bhatt had filed an affidavit before the apex court reiterating his allegations against Modi. He was supported by a journalist, who too had filed an affidavit.
“We are not supposed to pass an order for everything that is uttered by anyone anywhere. That is why we did not take note of the two affidavits and you (Y C Modi) are requesting court to clarify to the media?” the bench said.
However, it said it would consider during the next hearing the request of the SIT for video recording of the proceedings of the Gulberg Society riot case trial.