Gujarat Riots | SIT Ignored Tehelka Sting Tapes In Zakia Jafri's Case, Though They Were Accepted By Court In Naroda Patya Case : Sibal To Supreme Court

On Wednesday, while making his submissions in the Zakia Jafri's appeal, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal contended that the Special Investigation Team had not conducted any form of investigation in the matter. A Bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar heard submissions in the plea challenging the SIT report giving clean chit to the erstwhile Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi and other high functionaries in the Gujarat riots of 2002. During the course of 3 days, Mr. Sibal took the bench through the documents to demonstrate the failure of the SIT in investigating the matter. Mr. Sibal submitted that SIT showed absolutely no commitment to the investigation process. The National Human Rights Commission had sought the interference of the Supreme Court in the cases pertaining to the riots that erupted in Gujarat in 2002 stating that the local police were not carrying out proper investigation. In the light of the same, in 2008, the Supreme Court had appointed the SIT and directed it to submit a report on the riot cases. The complaint of Zakia Jafri was also to be considered by the SIT. Subsequently, in 2011, the Supreme Court directed SIT to file the closure report before the court which had already taken cognizance of Gulberga Society case. Jafri filed a protest petition against the report, which had given a clean chit to state functionaries, bureaucrats, and politicians. The Magistrate went along with the closure report and refused to take cognisance in the matter. The High Court in appeal upheld the order of the magistrate, leaving Jafri with no other option but to approach the Apex Court. While Zakia Jafri is the first petitioner before the Supreme Court, social activist Teesta Setalvad is the second petitioner. Contextualising Article 21 In his efforts to exhibit that the process of investigation was a farce, at the outset, Mr. Sibal contextualises Article 21 of the Constitution in the present case. Article 21 permits deprivation of life liberty only by the means of a procedure established by law. In the current context Cr.P.C. being the procedure established by law, Mr. Sibal referring to certain provisions submitted - 'The umbilical cord that connects it with A21 is pure unbiased investigation'. Justice subsumes the articles of the Part III of the Constitution and if the investigating machinery i.e. State fails to carry out proper investigation then it would be in derogation of Part III. Etymology of the word 'investigation' In his submissions Mr. Sibal goes into the root of the word 'investigation' to show how the investigation carried out by SIT was a farce. He stated- "Actually there is a Latin word called vestigare - the meaning of which is track; trace. From that came the word investigare; investigat which means traced out and it became investigate in the 16th century. So, what it means is trace out;track...It is to trace out the truthfulness of the sentence; to find out the footprint of that statement. That is at the heart of the investigation. If you accept a potential accused statement then it amounts to no investigation. Then the Special Investigating Team in 'SIT' - It is sitting, It is not an investigation. The whole purpose of investigation is a systematic fact finding and reporting process. So the footprint of the truthfulness of the statement has to be looked at. This is the conceptual background that has to be kept in mind for any investigation...In fact the most important part of investigation is the purity of the process." Why was SIT appointed Tracing the source of the appointment of SIT, he submitted - "Why was this SIT set up - because NHRC moved the Supreme Court and said that the local police are not investigating the matter properly. That's why all the nine matters were given to SIT. That is why no FIR was filed before local police. The moment an FIR is filed it would have been investigated by the local police. In my case, Milords, no FIR. Otherwise local police would have investigated. CIB gives regular RC no and lodge separate FIR. SIT cannot do that. That is why probably the FIR was not asked to be lodged." Pre-identification by Mobs Reading from to Vol. 5 of the Protest petition, Mr. Sibal continued - "Muslim residential colonies, shops and establishment were identified beforehand and these records were available with marauding mobs" In this context recalling from his personal experience, he shared - "I remember in 1984 where I was living in Maharani Bagh there were two houses of friends of ours, Sikh gentlemen and the mob came, they pre identified those houses and they only went to those houses. Luckily we saved one of them." PC Pandey, Commissioner Ahmedabad not investigated Refuting the statement of Mr. PC Pandey, Commissioner Ahmedabad, Mr. Sibal...

Gujarat Riots | SIT Ignored Tehelka Sting Tapes In Zakia Jafri's Case, Though They Were Accepted By Court In Naroda Patya Case : Sibal To Supreme Court

Sohini Chowdhury

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