The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the Gujarat government’s application seeking a stop to continuous monitoring of investigation and prosecution in the 2002 riots cases.
In an order that could have a strong bearing on the decision on setting up a special investigating team (SIT) to probe allegations against home minister P Chidambaram in the 2G spectrum scam, the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the Gujarat government’s application seeking a stop to continuous monitoring of investigation and prosecution in the 2002 riots cases.
Gujarat government counsel Mukul Rohtagi pleaded that the monitoring be halted as the charge sheets had been filed in some cases and in some others, evidence was being recorded by the five trial courts. Additional solicitor general Haren Raval, who represented CBI in the spectrum cases and appeared for the Centre in this case, refrained from making any remarks.
Rohtagi contended that the role of the SIT had come to an end with the filing of charge sheets, an argument that the CBI and the Union government had made while opposing the pleas made by Team Anna member Prashant Bhushan and Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy for a SIT to probe whether Chidambaram was also responsible for the country’s biggest ever scam.
The two wanted a SIT to examine certain allegations that hinge on “culpability” of the then finance minister, Chidamabaram, when the then telecom minister, A Raja, arbitrarily allotted spectrum licenses at dirt cheap prices to a select few companies in 2008.
Dismissing the Gujarat government plea, a bench of justices DK Jain, P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam said the trial was being monitored by SIT for two years and there was no change in circumstances to revisit that decision.
The judges also refused to pass any order on SIT’s application seeking clarification on the allegations made against it by jailed senior IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt. It is for the SIT to decide what it should do with the allegations, the court said.
It may be pointed out that the apex court had on May 1, 2009, passed a detailed judgment on the writ petition filed by the National Human Rights Commission seeking setting up a SIT to ensure that the victims of the “state- orchestrated mindless violence” got justice.
A bench headed by Justice Arijit Pasayat, now retired, observed that “the time has become ripe to act on account of numerous experiencesfaced by the courts on account of frequent turning of witnesses as hostile, either due to threats, coercion, lures and monetary considerations at the instance of those in power, their henchmen and hirelings, political clouts and patronage and innumerable other corrupt practices ingeniously adopted to smother and stifle the truth and realities coming out to surface rendering truth and justice, to become ultimate casualties’’.
It also ruled that “broader public and societal interests” required that the victims of the crime who were not ordinarily parties to prosecution and the interests of the State represented by their prosecuting agencies “do not suffer even in slow process but irreversibly and irretrievably”.
In the spectrum case, Bhushan and Swamy stressed the need for setting a SIT as they apprehended that the CBI sleuths wouldn’t be able to question the home minister. It was pointed out that the confidential reports of all the IPS officers engaged in the spectrum scam investigation were prepared by the home ministry which is also the cadre controlling authority of the IPS officers.
On the contrary, CBI’s lawyer KK Venugopal claimed that CBI was an independent, autonomous body and its officers were beyond any one’s influence. Centre’s lawyer PP Rao questioned the apex court’s power to monitor the probe after the charge sheet had been filed. However, Justice GS Singhvi and Justice AK Ganguly said they would pass an order soon keeping in mind a Constitutional provision that the apex court can pass any order to do complete justice.
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