Court orders SIT to furnish complete documents to Zakia

A local court on Thursday directed the Special Investigation Team, which probed the complaint against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others with regard to their alleged roles in 2002 riots, to furnish 'complete and legible copies' of the documents to Zakia Jafri, the complainant in the case.

"The SIT is directed to furnish the complete and legible copies of the documents, which it submitted with the (closure) report, to the complainant by September 7," Metropolitan Magistrate B J Ganatra said in his order on Jafri's plea.

The court also directed the SIT to file a detailed affidavit on the issue of documents it had collected during the probe. Following the probe-closure report filed in February by the SIT, Jafri -- whose husband and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri died in the riots -- was provided with copies of final report and other documents including statements of the witnesses, running into over 20,000 pages.

Jafri then filed an application, saying that several of the documents were illegible. She also demanded the copies of interim reports filed in the Supreme Court by SIT member A K Malhotra, and Chairman R K Raghvan's comments on that interim report.

The court rejected this demand, but allowed Zakia an inspection of all the documents submitted by SIT.