Metropolitan magistrate DS Bhatt, on Saturday, rejected Zakia Jafri’s petition demanding that the contents of the SIT’s final report be made public.
Metropolitan magistrate DS Bhatt, on Saturday, rejected Zakia Jafri’s petition demanding that the contents of the SIT’s final report be made public. The SIT has submitted its report on charges of complicity in the communal riots of 2002 levelled against chief minister Narendra Modi and other senior politicians and officials of the state.
The metropolitan magistrate’s court rejected Zakia’s plea on the ground that the SIT is yet to produce all the documents related to the final report. The court further said that the party’s [Zakia’s] rights are not affected if the contents of the report are not made public.
Meanwhile, Amrish Patel, a witness in the Naroda Patiya riot case and member of the NGO, Jan Sangharsh Manch, has filed a petition demanding that the status of the SIT’s final report be announced.
Samshad Pathan, counsel for Patel, said that they had requested the court to declare whether the report, which was a public document, was private or confidential. “The court has posted further hearing on our petition on March 12,” Pathan said.
Zakia, Teesta Setalvad and Patel had earlier filed a petition seeking a copy of the SIT’s final report but it was rejected by the court on February 15. Then they had them sought that they be allowed to inspect the report in court, arguing that the parties had the right to know its contents and also who had been given a clean chit and who had been implicated.
During arguments on February 29, the Supreme Court-appointed counsel for the SIT, RS Jamuar, submitted that, the complainant had no right to seek the report as the Supreme Court had clearly said that the complainant cannot ask for it unless the magisterial court initiates legal process over it.
Jamuar had further said that if the petitioners needed the report, they can approach the Supreme Court as the SIT had filed the same report in sealed cover there also. The SIT is already the process of serialising the documents related to the final report and was going to submit them in the magisterial court before March 15, Jamuar said.
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