Friday, August 31, 2012

Court pulls up SIT, rejects plea for more time to submit papers

The special court hearing the Gulbarg Society massacre case on Tuesday rejected a plea by the Supreme Courtappointed special investigation team (SIT) for more time to submit its final report.
    Refusing to defer the implementation of his order to place documents from the further investigation carried out on Zakia Jafri’s complaint, designated judge B J Dhandha roundly criticized the probe agency for its changing stand. The judge also pulled up the SIT for requesting the court to recall its own order, which is not permissible in law, the judge observed in his order.

    SIT had sought to defer implementation of the court order because it wanted to challeng the order in the high court. However, the SIT has already submitted its final report in sealed covers, and the court has also decided to not open it for a month on the probe team’s request.
    The SIT was also rapped for opposing the victims’ demand for documents which could be evidence in their plea to arraign four cops – P C Pande, M K Tan
don, P B Gondia, and S S Chudasama. Earlier, the court repeatedly deferred the issue of arraigning these cops as SIT had stated that further investigation was underway, and more material evidence being gathered.
    Once the probe ended, and as per the SC order, SIT submitted its closure report against chief minister Narendra Modi and others in Jafri’s complaint. In November last, SIT had made an undertaking before the designated court that after the report was filed before the magisterial court, it would submit relevant documents before the trial court
too.
    In Tuesday’s order, the court noticed that the SIT has declared its intention of not producing the copies of documents. “Now the SIT is changing its stand and they have prayed to defer the order for production of copies. But this court cannot change its earlier order,” the order reads.
    The court is trying 66 accused persons for killing 69 Muslims in the colony in Chamanpura area on February 28, 2002. The court is also hearing a plea by victims to treat four cops as accused for dereliction of duty, criminal negligence and criminal conspiracy.