The Supreme Court has closed pending cases pertaining to the 2002 Gujarat riots for which it had formed an SIT under former CBI director R K Raghavan. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the SIT, informed the court that trials in eight of the nine cases have been completed and hearing in the Naroda Patiya case is at an advanced stage and final arguments are being made in the trial court.
“Since all matters have now become infructuous, this court need not entertain any application. Trial in Naroda Patiya case be taken to its logical conclusion as per law,” the bench said. The apex court’s order passed on the National Human Rights Commission’s petition for conducting probe and prosecution in the nine cases have been complied with and nothing survives in them. There was a pending application filed by Teesta Setalvad, social activist seeking the court’s direction for restoration of her security, the bench allowed her liberty to approach the appropriate authority for seeking protection and the authority would consider and decide her plea as per law.
The SIT was also given the task to probe the “larger conspiracy” in the 2002 riots. That issue has also now attained finality with the Supreme Court in June upholding the SIT’s findings, giving a clean chit to the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi and other state functionaries. Examining threadbare all the allegations made against Modi and other officials on the “conspiracy” behind the riots and the findings of the SIT’s report in its 452-page verdict, the apex court said that no case was made out against them and there was nothing to substantiate the allegations of hatching of criminal conspiracy at the highest level for causing violence against the minority community.
