'This Is A Case Where The Majesty Of Law Has Been Deeply Injured': Kapil Sibal Concludes His Arguments Before Supreme Court In Gujarat Riots-Zakia Jafri Matter

On Tuesday, Senior Advocate, Mr. Kapil Sibal appearing for the Petitioner, vehemently argued that the SIT that had given clean chit to the highest functionaries of the State of Gujarat, who were alleged to have been involved in the Gujarat riots of 2002, did not conduct proper investigation and the Magistrate and the Gujarat High Court did not deal with crucial material, refusing to delve further into the matter. A Bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari and CT Ravikumar took up the part heard matter for further hearing. Taking the Court through a range of voluminous documents and notes, Mr. Sibal concluded his arguments on behalf of the Petitioner. Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, Zakia's husband was brutally slain in the Gulberg Society massacre, a day after the Sabarmati express was torched in Godhra. On 8th June, 2006, Zakia had filed a complaint against some of the top officials and ministers including the then Chief Minister of Gujarat for, inter alia, inaction, complicity, conspiracy. Non-action on the complaint by the State police forced Zakia to approach the Gujarat High Court seeking the complaint to be treated as an FIR. On dismissal of the matter by the High Court, she moved the Supreme Court. The Apex Court directed the Special Investigation Team, which was already constituted to investigate the Gujarat riots, 2002 to also look into the complaint filed by Zakia. On the direction of the Court, the SIT filed a closure report on 8th February, 2012 giving clean chit to the accused without granting Zakia Jafri an opportunity to be heard. She had filed a Protest Petition challenging the investigation conducted by SIT, before the Supreme Court, which directed the Magistrate to look into the closure report along with the Protest Petition. The Magistrate dismissed the petition refusing to take cognisance. The High Court also did not find fault in the SIT closure report, but partly allowed the revision petition in October, 2017 granting Zakia Jafri the liberty to seek further investigation regarding the larger conspiracy in the Gulberg Society massacre. Thereafter, Zakia approached the Supreme Court in 2018 vide the present Special Leave Petition. Two limbs of his arguments At the outset, Mr. Sibal clarified the two limbs of his arguments. The first being the fact that in the present proceedings he has been dealing only with undisputed facts. The second limb suggests that he has limited himself to only those disputed facts that he felt needed further investigation. "I might just clarify that in these proceedings ever since I have made my submissions I want to preface my submissions by saying that I am dealing with undisputed facts...I am only dealing with undisputed documents and statements. Second, wherever there is dispute in facts unless there is requirement for investigation I shall not enter into that. Therefore, there are two limbs of my argument." Recapitulation of crux of submissions Recapitulating the crux of the submissions made on previous occasions, Mr. Sibal drew the Court's attention to the various issues, including, police inaction, complicity and failure of public servants to do the needful, admission of police inaction, the collaboration of police officials as reflected in the Tehelka tapes, mob mobilisation in Solah Civil Hospital, non action by fire brigade, no preventive arrest, no preventive action taken to curb the violence that emanated from the bandh. "I was on Vol III. Let me recapitulate. Now, Milords if you look at Page A - Issues not dealt with by the Magistrate and High Court...Kindly have a look at Page A. I have time and again demonstrated about police inaction, complicity and failure of public servants, admission of police inaction in Tehelka - that is all part of the heading. Mob mobilisation in Solah Civil Hospital, no investigation...Non action by Fire brigade, only 2 preventive arrests that too from Muslim community, violence because of bandh because no action taken. Come to page I - delay in deployment of army, no investigation." Members of the statutory, constitutional and parliamentary bodies corroborating evidence not examined by SIT Mr. Sibal emphasised that official records pertaining to the above-mentioned issues were corroborated by reports of statutory, constitutional and parliamentary bodies. He also expressed his dismay that the SIT did not bother to conduct an investigation in this regard. "All these corroborated by NHRC, Citizen's Tribunal, Women's Parliamentary Committee, and no members questioned." Surprised that the basics of criminal investigations were not followed by the investigating agencies, he remarked - "In the criminal offence, the first thing you do is take the statement of the victim...No statements were taken...Why were the victims' statements not taken? Will you call it negligence, will you call it oversight or will you call it...

'This Is A Case Where The Majesty Of Law Has Been Deeply Injured': Kapil Sibal Concludes His Arguments Before Supreme Court In Gujarat Riots-Zakia Jafri Matter

Sohini Chowdhury

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