Court rejects Zakia's plea for SIT's preliminary report

An Ahmedabad court on Monday rejected Zakia Jafri's demand for access to preliminary report filed by A K Malhotra of Special Investigation Team in the Supreme Court during the inquiry into her complaint against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others with regard to 2002 riots.

Metropolitan Magistrate B J Ganatra also rejected the plea of social activist Teesta Setalvad, seeking permission to inspect (on Zakia's behalf) the original documents submitted by the SIT with its closure report.

Zakia, whose husband and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed during the riots, had contended that Malhotra's report and the remarks by R K Raghvan, SIT Chairman, were part of the 'relevant material' which Supreme Court had asked SIT to provide to her.

But making a distinction between 'inquiry' and 'investigation', the court held that Malhotra had submitted the reports following SC's directions for 'inquiry'.

"This court cannot order for the documents which investigating officer has not collected or taken in his custody during the course of investigation," the magistrate said and asked SIT to file an affidavit listing which of the documents (sought by Zakia) it does not have, by July 21.

Zakia had filed a complaint against Modi and others for a "larger conspiracy" in 2002 riots.

After filing its closure report on her complaint, SIT had handed over copies of all related documents to Zakia, but she also wanted preliminary reports filed by A K Malhotra.

Her lawyer, Mihir Desai, had said last time that SIT's stand in Malhotra's report was different from what it said in the final, closure report.