New Delhi, April 17: The Gujarat government told the Supreme Court that most of the allegations on the basis of which it had stayed trial in the 2002 Gujarat riot cases for six years were found to be false by the special investigation team ( SIT) constituted by it.
In an affidavit filed before the court on Friday, the Narendra Modi government alleged Teesta Setalvad was tutoring witnesses and sought registration of a case against her and her accomplices.
Seeking dismissal of a plea for reconstitution of the SIT with exemplary costs, it said the “ sudden belated attack” against the SIT now showed a well- designed pattern to keep the controversy alive and not to permit law to take its course.
The apex court had stayed the trial in nine cases in November 2003, following allegations against the state police. It constituted the SIT in 2008 for further investigation and finally gave a go- ahead to trial in May 2009.
With NGOs questioning the conduct of some SIT officers, the court had indicated during the last hearing that it intended to stay the trials till the disposal of the plea seeking reconstitution of the SIT.
The state government had opposed the move and had asked the court not to pass an order without letting it present its side of the story.
Additional secretary (home) D. Dwivedi said in the affidavit that the probe by the SIT had revealed that allegations on which the trials were stayed in 2003 were false. The SIT had placed on record statements by witnesses admitting that they were asked by Teesta to file pre- typed computerised statements before it.
It said she was concentrating on defending those who burnt the train in Godhra and the application against the SIT was filed with ulterior motives.
Some of the witnesses who had been asked to file false affidavits are yet to be examined by the trial court, but “ now a prayer of stay is coming forth by the applicant and apparently by the Centre”, the affidavit stated.
Though the state government targeted the Centre, it did not specify the grounds its inference was based on.
Stating that it had no role in the constitution of the SIT, the Modi government said Teesta and others were now opposing it because it was acting fairly. She had been making “ false, baseless and reckless” allegations regarding the 2002 riots and this had a serious potential to create communal disharmony at a time when there was peace in the state for years, it said.
The state government did not spare Zakia Jafri either.
The widow of murdered ex- Congress MP Ehsan Jafri — on whose complaint Modi was recently questioned by the SIT — had refused to co- operate with the police, it said.
Her complaint was in complete variance with her statement before the Nanavati Commission inquiring into the riots.
Zakia had taken judicial recourse after the state police called her to record her statement on her complaint in June 2006. Though the high court refused to pass any direction, the SC had in 2009 referred the matter to the SIT. On Modi’s questioning, the state government said calling persons named in the complaint for recording their statements was neither permissible in law nor was contemplated in the order. The court had merely asked the SIT to look into the complaint, it said.
Opposing another attempt to get the trials stayed, the state government said the court had subjected the matter to an exhaustive process of judicial scrutiny from 2003 to 2009. Now that the SIT has filed chargesheets in the cases, further involvement of the court would not be justified on facts apart from being impermissible in law.
On Gulbarg society case special prosecutor R. K. Shah putting in his papers after levelling allegations against the trial judge and the SIT, it said Shah had already examined 295 witnesses.
Only four witnesses had turned hostile and none of the about 60 police witnesses had been declared hostile. The judge had been selected by the HC, it pointed out.
Taking on NGOs for maligning the state government, the affidavit asked the SC to issue notices to all states and examine the extent to which third parties could interfere with criminal trials.
–Agencies