The Gujarat High Court on Friday declined to stay the fresh probe being conducted by the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) or any other process against Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 62 others in connection with the post-Godhra riots cases in 2002.

The court has also issued notices to the state Home Secretary, complainant Zakia Jaffri, social activist Teesta Setalvad and her NGO ‘Citizens for Justice and Peace’ apart from six senior SIT officials, including SIT chief R K Raghavan, Paramveer Singh, A K Malhotra, Geetha Johri, Shivanand Jha and Ashish Bhatia, on a petition challenging the probe being carried out by the team. The court has asked all of them to give their reply on June 16.

The petition filed by former BJP MLA from Lunavada, Kalubai Hirabhai Malivad (his name too mentioned in the complaint) appealed to the court to stay the probe in the case and restrain the SIT from arresting persons named in the complaint, including Modi.

Hearing the case, Justice R H Shukla refused to grant interim relief in the form of staying any proceedings against Modi and others in the matter.

Raising a legal question on the investigation being carried out by SIT in Zakia’s complaint, Malivad’s counsel S B Vakil contended that the apex court had asked the SIT to “look into” the complaint, and this didn’t empower it to investigate the case as per provisions of the CrPC, as there was no FIR registered in this case.

“The apex court has asked the SIT to look into the complaint by Jaffri, but that does not mean that they (SIT) can call, interrogate and arrest any of the 63 persons or record their statement in connection with the complaint,” he said.

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