SC to continue monitoring Gujarat riots cases

In 2009,the court had decided to step in after the National Human Rights Commission and various NGOs complained that the local police were doing a shoddy job of investigating the cases.

In the September order,the court concluded that the SIT had conducted an honest probe into the allegations of Zakia Jafri,the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed by a mob,and it was time to stop monitoring the case.

Explaining why it had decided to bow out of the Gulberg case,the court had then observed: “In cases monitored by this court,it is concerned with ensuring proper and honest performance of its duty by the investigating agency… We are of the opinion that in the instant case we have reached a stage where the process of monitoring of the case must come to an end”.

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi,representing the Gujarat government,used this reasoning to challenge the SC’s continued monitoring of the other nine cases. Rohatgi argued that “it is time the Supreme Court let go” as chargesheets have been filed and trials already commenced in the nine cases.

“Once chargesheet has been filed,superior courts should ideally let go… But here the court is continuing to monitor after the chargesheet has been filed and trial has commenced,” Rohatgi countered.

In a spirited defence of its stand,Justice D K Jain,who leads the bench of Justices P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam,said “monitoring after filing of chargesheet is not a phenomenon developed today”,adding,“it is not a new law laid down today”.

Meanwhile,the SC pulled up the SIT for going back on its earlier request in March to video record the trial court proceedings in Gulberg case.