SC wont share Gulberg report with Gujarat,SIT

A special Bench of Justices D K Jain,P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam declined SIT chief R K Raghavans request to share the report with his team.

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Refusing to give copies of an independent report on the Gulberg society massacre to both the Gujarat government and its own SIT,the Supreme Court on Thursday said the document,prepared by amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran,was elaborate and covered all aspects,including the conduct of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and other high state functionaries.

A special Bench of Justices D K Jain,P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam declined SIT chief R K Raghavans request to share the report with his team. We have not seen the report ourselves, Raghavan protested in open court,only to have the Bench dismiss his plea with an assurance that he would be supplied with a copy at the appropriate time.

Senior advocate Ranjit Kumar,appearing for the Gujarat government,strongly protested against the courts intention to keep the report confidential,saying its findings concerned high-level persons and state officials against whom there were allegations,and the state would definitely want to know their status.

To this too,the court merely said the state will get everything at the appropriate time. The Bench categorically told the state and the SIT that,as of now,they had to be content with copies of detailed orders,which would include guidelines on the investigation the court intended to pass on a scheduled date.

Nearly 70 persons,including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri,were killed by a mob at the Gulberg housing society in Ahmedabad during the 2002 post-Godhra riots. Jafris widow,Zakia,had approached the apex court for investigation into roles of Modi and 61 others,mostly high functionaries of the state,in the murders.

The SIT also filed a separate report on the case in the court Thursday. This follows a March 15 hearing when the special bench had told the probe team to re-examine the case after the latter gave a clean chit to Modi,saying there was no evidence for prosecution. The amicus,too,had expressed dissatisfaction with the teams probe results and pointed out several lacunae. The SIT inferences and evidence do not match its findings, the court had said after comparing the amicuss note with the SIT report.

The court had also asked the amicus to conduct an independent probe of his own after directly interacting with the witnesses and police officers named in the SITs status report. His brief had been simple: Bring to light any offences against anyone.

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The assigning of an independent probe to the amicus had immediately followed an affidavit filed by Sanjiv Bhatt,a Gujarat IPS officer,with the Supreme Court stating he was part of a late-night meeting during which Modi asked the police to give the rioters room to vent out their anger. The court had then refused to take on record Bhatts affidavit.

The Gujarat government brought up the issue of Bhatts affidavit,contending that it made sharing the amicuss report all the more necessary. However,the court cursorily dismissed the contention,saying that Bhatts affidavit has nothing to do with this amicus report.