HC adjourns hearing on Zakia’s petition

The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday adjourned hearing on a petition of Zakia Jafri, the widow of slain ex-Congress MP Ahsan Jafri, challenging the magisterial court’s order that upheld the clean chit given to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others by Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) in the 2002 post Godhra riots.  Justice S G Shah has posted the hearing for October 15 after Zakia sought time to verify the translation of the voluminous documents in the case.

The translation of magisterial court’s order and other annexures was done by the High Court’s registry. These documents were handed over to the parties concerned last week.

On March 15, Zakia had moved the HC against the magistrate court’s order upholding the SIT report that there was not enough evidence to prosecute Modi and other accused. She alleged that the magistrate’s court accepted SIT’s closure report with a “non-application of mind”.

The Supreme Court-appointed SIT had filed a closure report while giving clean chit to Modi and others. On February 28, 2002, following the Godhra train-burning incident, 68 people, including Ahsan Jafri, were killed by a mob at Gulberg Society.