In Brief
Widow of a victim of communal riots appealed against the Magistrate's acceptance of a Special Investigation Team's (SIT) closure report finding no evidence of larger criminal conspiracy at the highest level in Gujarat's 2002 communal violence. The Court upheld the closure report. After exhaustive investigation monitored by the Supreme Court, the SIT found that alleged eyewitnesses (Sanjiv Bhatt, Haren Pandya, R.B. Sreekumar) had made false or uncorroborated claims about a meeting where the Chief Minister allegedly instructed officials to allow violence. No meeting of minds among conspirators was established. The Court held the Magistrate correctly exercised discretion in accepting the final report and found no sufficient evidence to direct further investigation.
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