The Asian Age
January 20, 2010
Gujarat asked to give Modi
speech copy
AGE
CORRESPONDENT
New Delhi
Jan. 19: In another
setback to the Narendra Modi government on alleged “stalling” of probe
by former CBI director R.K. Ragvan-led SIT in nine major Gujarat riot
cases, the Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the state authorities to
provide the copies of the speeches of the chief minister, some other
leaders and other relevant documents to the investigating team.
One of the 14 documents
sought by the SIT, but denied by the state, include the speech by Mr
Modi that purportedly was “inflammatory” in nature, which several
human rights organisations had termed as one that inflated the post-Godhra
carnage.
A three-judge special
bench seized of the National Human Rights Commission petition on the
issue, gave the direction to the state authorities after perusing the
interim report of the SIT, submitted in a sealed cover.
The bench of justices D.K.
Jain, P. Sathasivam and Aftab Alam declined to entertain a plea by
GujaratÂ’s additional advocate general Tushar Mehta against making Mr
ModiÂ’s speech available to the SIT. Mr Mehta argued that the speech
was delivered by the CM months after the post-Godhra riots.
Mr Mehta argued that the
said speech was in “no way relevant” to the complaint of alleged
conspiracy.