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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Supreme Court should halt undermining of the purpose of setting up an SIT

Supreme Court should halt undermining of the purpose of setting up an SIT

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published Published on May 11, 2012   modified Modified on May 11, 2012
-The Economic Times

The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) has concluded in its final report that it would not amount to an offence even if Gujarat chief ministerNarendra Modi hypothetically did say something about 'allowing Hindus to vent their anger' in a meeting with top police officers after the Godhra carnage in 2002. That is an appalling conclusion. If Modi did actually make that statement, it patently cannot be called a case of an individual expressing his private biases 'within the four walls of a room'.

Rather, it would be a case of a chief minister effectively telling officers of the law how to behave in a situation of organised killing. Even at face value, this sort of a conclusion by the SIT - even as it has closed investigation into the Gulberg Society massacre after finding no evidence to prosecute Modi, top political leaders, bureaucrats and police officers - raises doubts about whether it is fully and impartially doing the job entrusted to it by the Supreme Court. The whole point of setting up the SIT was a lack of faith in the ability of the state investigative agencies to impartially investigate the communal riot cases given that apprehensions about complicity in the carnage at virtually all levels of the state machinery were rife. If the SIT itself, in turn, is giving cause for worry that it too may be inclined to shield (or be partial towards) guilt at the top levels of government, then it would be time for the Supreme Court to intervene again in a manner it sees fit.

Given the twists and turns the investigations have taken, the crucial differences between the SIT's preliminary report and its final one included, apprehensions of bad faith cannot be dismissed. The issue is not just justice for the victims of the organised violence against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002. At stake is the institutional integrity of the constitutional process of Indian democracy . If the best intentions of the Supreme Court cannot counter the penchant of the local state machinery, excluding no part of it, to be complicit in violence against a section of Gujarati society, that would mean an open, gaping wound for Indian democracy.

The Economic Times, 11 May, 2012, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/editorial/supreme-court-should-halt-undermining-of-the-purpose-of-setting-up-an-sit/articleshow/13089871.cms


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