Analysis: Will SIT again speak, hear, see no evil in govt?

The Supreme Court order of September 12, 2011 instructing that the special investigation team (SIT) to submit a final report on the riot cases before the trial court, along with all the evidence collected by it, has re-kindled hopes of justice among the victims.

But will the SIT actually deliver justice this time or will it again manipulate the investigation to shield the officials and politicians who allegedly played a dubious role during the 2002 riots?

Following the Supreme Court order, the SIT has now two options. Taking a clue from Jakia Jafri's complaint, it can collect more evidence against senior government officials and politicians believed to have played a role in the riots and correct the defects in its earlier probe. It would then have to register fresh offences besides forwarding all the evidence it has collected to the relevant trial courts. Such a course will, of course, be a complete reversal of what it has done so far.

The other choice before the SIT is not to arrest or prosecute those in senior echelons of the establishment on the technical grounds of inadequate evidence, systemic failure, lack of cooperation from citizens and even erosion of moral values!

To make matters worse for the riot victims, instead of handing over the entire evidence to the trial court (as directed by the Supreme Court), the SIT can chose to forward only those materials which validate its suspected cover-up of the riot crimes. This can be achieved by getting legal opinion from pliable advocates chosen by the probe team itself.

This approach, of course, will be music to all those who gained from the riots. They can now vigorously pursue their careers in politics and administration while the victims find themselves mired in endless litigations and appeals that fetch them no justice.

Then can one hope that the probe team will admit its mistakes and move to deliver justice quickly? Or, will it further strengthen the protection it has apparently extended to the guilty by continuing with the travesty of an investigation it has conducted so far?

Given the SIT's past performance, there are misgivings among riot victims about the probe team's commitment to justice. And it is difficult to blame them. The general perception among people concerned with rule of law in the state is that during its investigation, the SIT acted as if it saw no evil, spoke no evil and heard no evil against the Modi government.

Of the numerous officials and politicians known to have played a dubious role in the 2002 riots, the SIT could arrest only one politician and a police inspector. The probe team appears to have been keen to keep the suspected complicity of the government machinery under wraps. In particular, it has been keen to insulate the senior bureaucracy and the ruling political establishment from the reach of law.

The people who actually organised and executed the worst riots in independent India were apparently granted immunity from prosecution. During its investigation, the SIT travelled religiously down the road shown to it by the Gujarat police, many of whose senior officers are themselves among the accused in the petition filed by Jakia Jafri in the Apex Court.

In doing so, the SIT did what I had apprehended it might do in two articles written for DNA in 2009. Its investigation turned out to be an exercise whose only purpose was to cause the least damage to those who had conceived and executed the killings during the riots under state patronage.  In something that is unusual for any investigating team, the SIT avoided following normal procedure such as re-creation of major crime scenes and procurement and verification of records of distress phone calls, among other routine work.

It now remains to be seen whether the SIT enacts a safe and quiet burial of the riot cases, or teaches a lesson to those responsible for the 2002 violence. We can only hope that the probe team does not again let down those who have already suffered beyond imagination.

— The author is a former DGP