New Delhi:
The Supreme Court has granted bail to civil servant Pradeep Sharma, who has accused Narendra Modi of complicity in Gujarat's communal riots of 2002.
Mr Sharma has been in a jail in Bhuj since his arrest in February. Mr Modi's government has accused him of being involved in a land scam in Kutch.
Mr Sharma had filed a petition in the Supreme Court against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, accusing the Chief Minister of foisting false criminal cases against him as retaliation for the IAS officer's disclosures about Mr Modi's alleged role in the riots that left 1200 people dead, most of them Muslims.
During the riots, Mr Sharma was the municipal commissioner of Jamnagar. In April this year, Mr Sharma wrote to a Special Investigating Team that was appointed by the Supreme Court to study the 2002 riots. In his note to the committee's chief, RK Raghavan, Mr Sharma said that the Chief Minister had asked him during the 2002 riots to tell his brother -a senior police officer named Kuldeep Sharma based in Ahmedabad - to abstain from taking any proactive measures to help those being attacked.
The Gujarat government did not oppose his bail plea during the Supreme Court's last hearing on Thursday but sought an undertaking from him that he would attend the trial.
While granting him bail, the Supreme Court said that the Gujarat government was free to circulate Mr Sharma's photograph and other personal details to immigration authorities at airports and ports so that he did not leave the country. It also directed Mr Sharma to furnish a bond of Rs 5 lakh.
Another officer who has taken on Mr Modi over his alleged role in the 2002 riots is the Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, Sanjeev Bhatt. He claimed before the Supreme Court in April that he had attended a meeting on 27 February 2002, where Mr Modi told the police not to act against the rioters. But Mr Modi and the other officers who attended the meeting have denied that Mr Bhatt, who was posted with the State Intelligence Bureau at the time, was present.
On August 6, Mr Bhatt told the Supreme Court that the state government had been leaking information which was being used in their defence by those accused of involvement in the riots. Mr Bhatt was suspended three days later for not reporting for duty and for misusing his official car.