Hand over Modi's speech, other documents to SIT: SC

The Supreme Court today asked the Gujarat government to furnish without delay all documents, including the alleged inflammatory speeches made by chief minister Narendra Modi, to the Special Investigation Team probing post-Godhra 2002 communal riots in the state.
    
A bench of justices DK Jain, P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam rejected the state government's argument that the documents sought by SIT may not have relevance to investigations.

"According to SIT, the statement made by the chief minister has some relevance. What is wrong if you make it available?" the bench said while directing Gujarat government to hand over without further delay all documents required by SIT.

The apex court passed the direction on the basis of an interim report submitted by SIT headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan complaining that certain documents relevant to the ongoing probe were not being furnished by the state government despite requests.

The documents allegedly being denied by the government included transcripts of an allegedly inflammatory speech made by Modi in September 2000 after the Godhra train carnage.

The bench also declined to grant five months time sought by SIT to submit its reports and asked the probe team to come out with its report to the court by April 30.