Zakia Jafri Case: Sibal Alleges SIT Collaboration, SC Calls It a 'Strong Term'

Sibal said that the Special Investigation Team ignored crucial evidence in its inquiry in the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Zakia Jafri, widow of Congress leader Ehsan Jafri, who was killed in the 2002 riots, breaks down during a press conference after a local court dismissed her petition challenging the SIT.

(File Photo)

Zakia Jafri's lawyer Kapil Sibal, during a Supreme Court hearing, alleged that there was "glaring evidence of collaboration" between the political class, the bureaucracy, and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) officers with respect to the 2002 Gujarat riots, The Indian Express reported.

Jafri, wife of late Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was brutally killed along with many others in Ahmedabad's Gulbarg Society Massacre in 2002, has appealed against the Gujarat High Court's order that upheld the Metropolitan Magistrate court's decision to accept the SIT's report, that claimed the then Gujarat CM Narendra Modi and others to be innocent in cases surrounding the violence.

The Supreme Court did not take Sibal's allegations lightly.

"You are attacking the manner of investigation done by SIT. It is the same SIT that had filed chargesheet in other cases, and they were convicted. No such grievance in those proceedings," replied the bench consisting of Justices A M Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari, and C T Ravikumar.

Sibal responded by arguing that the SIT ignored crucial evidence.

"Why did SIT not take statements of people in Tehelka (sting) tapes? SIT did not examine people who it should have. It was prosecuting some but also did not prosecute some whom it should have, for reasons best known to it."

The apex court then said that "collaboration is a strong term for a SIT constituted by the court."

Bur Sibal maintained that the investigative process raised massive doubts, and that the SIT itself should be investigated.

"The SIT did not do its job. It was an act of protection... The SIT only worked to protect the VHP, Bajrang Dal, RSS members," he added, according to NDTV.

(With inputs from NDTV and Indian Express.)