New Delhi:
Gujarat riots victim Zakia Jafri's plea seeking crucial documents of the Special Investigating Team (SIT), which investigated Chief Minister Narendra Modi's role in the 2002 riots, was referred to a larger bench today by the Supreme Court.
The court's move comes on the basis of a complaint filed by Ms Jafri after an Ahmedabad court had ruled on November 27 that she has lost the right to petition against a closure report filed by the SIT that gave a clean chit to Modi earlier this year.
A three judge bench, which had passed orders on the SIT, will now hear Ms Jafri's plea in the second week of January next year.
Her lawyer told Supreme Court that she could not file protest petition against the closure report against Mr Modi because SIT failed to provide some documents, also the investigation reports filed by SIT.
Earlier the lower court said that Ms Jafri - wife of Congress leader Ehsaan Jafri, who was burnt alive by a riotous mob in February 2002 - had failed to file the petition despite repeated extensions being granted.
Ms Jafri's lawyer had contended that she had informed the court earlier that she had sought some clarification from the Supreme Court and needed time to file her petition.
Ms Jafri's case relates to the killing of her husband and 68 people on February 28, 2002 at the Gulberg Housing Society in Ahmedabad where the Jafris lived. Ms Jafri alleges that Mr Modi and several senior ministers and officials did nothing to prevent the killings, despite several frantic calls made by Mr Jafri to the police and even to the Chief Minister's office, for help as a mob attacked the housing complex.
The Supreme Court had set up the SIT to look into Ms Jafri's case and other cases. In February this year, the SIT gave a clean chit to Mr Modi, saying it has found no evidence against him and 61 other accused in the case. The SIT filed a closure report on which the Ahmedabad court has been conducting a hearing.