User:Kautilya3/sandbox/Special Investigation Team (2002 Gujarat riots)

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the 2002 Gujarat violence was appointed by the Supreme Court of India in March 2008. The Supreme Court has transferred to the SIT the responsibility for investigating and bringing to justice the perpetrators of 9 major incidents of violence including the Godhra train burning case. This innovative scheme by an `activist' Supreme Court is the first instance of such a team being put in charge of communal riots investigation in India. It is also the first instance where major convictions have been obtained for the perpetrators of communal violence.

The composition of the SIT is a 5-member team with three serving police officers of Gujarat police and two retired police officials from outside Gujarat. The retired director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, R. K. Raghavan, was chosen as an outside member to head the team.

Genesis
The 2002 Gujarat violence, involving large scale massacres of several of Gujarat's Muslim communities, started on the 28 February 2002 and continued sporadically until May 2002, when the national government intervened with the appointment of K. P. S. Gill as a `supercop'. The State Police tried their best to obstruct justice for the victims. They destroyed recordings of their radio communications. They did their best to dissuade the victims from lodging complaints. When complaints were recorded, either the facts were not noted down in sufficient detail or the names of the accused were left out. No measures were taken to preserve evidence. Consequently, out of the 4,252 complaints finally lodged, 2,032 were dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence. In some places where Muslims had been worst affected, Sangh Parivar leaders had been appointed as public prosecutors, who ensured that charges were brought in only select few cases. When the few cases finally went to trial, the quality of the prosecution was inadequate to obtain convictions.

The first case to be tried in October 2002 was the Kidiad case (Sabarkantha district), where 70 Muslims fleeing from their village on 2 March in two vans were caught up by Hindu mobs in two separate locations and massacred. Only 9 people were brought to trial and all were acquitted. The Judge noted that the police failed to conduct further investigation despite repeated requests by the victims, and that they refused to implicate the assailants named by the witnesses. Two more cases, relating to the killing of 40 Muslims in Pandarwada in Panchmahal district also resulted in the acquittal of 21 persons in October 2002.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) had been already alert to the fact that the first information reports (FIRs) were not being filed by the police correctly and that the investigations were inadequate. Consequently, it recommended that 5 major carnage cases should be handed over the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The State Government rejected the recommendation.

On 27 June 2003, 21 accused persons in the high-profile Best Bakery case were acquitted. This being one of the cases recommended by NHRC for transfer to the CBI, the acquittal made front page news. Shortly afterwards, Zahira Sheikh, who had turned `hostile' during the trial, stated in a press conference that she had retracted her testimony under duress, pressured by a BJP legislator Madhu Srivastava. She also appealed to the NHRC to reopen the case. NHRC took the `miscarriage of justice' in the Best Bakery case as a reflection of the environment prevailing in Gujarat, and filed a special leave petition in the Supreme court of India, seeking a reinvestigation of the Best Bakery case and its retrial outside Gujarat.

The Chief Minister Narendra Modi wrote to the President Abdul Kalam, attacking the NHRC for bypassing the Gujarat High Court. Alluding to the NHRC as "vested interests," he accused it of trying to the obstruct the path of progress in Gujarat by identifying "stray incidents" and exaggerating them. This would weaken the "collective strength of the democratic institutions," he opined. The Supreme Court proceeded cautiously and let the Gujarat Government file an appeal in the Gujarat High Court. However, upon seeing the appeal, the Supreme Court called it a "complete eyewash," summoned the State's Chief Secretary and the Director General of Police, and grilled them on the issue of intimidation of witnesses. Subsequently, the government amended its appeal in the High Court to seek a retrial of the Best Bakery case. However, the Gujarat High Court rejected the appeal. The Supreme Court overturned the High Court verdict and ordered a retrial of the case outside Gujarat. Having monitored the retrial, the Supreme Court came to the conclusion that the deficiencies in the investigation by Gujarat Police could not be overcome merely by transferring trials to courts outside Gujarat. Of the 9 accused persons, only 4 could be convicted.

Bilkis Bano, who also approached the NHRC during 2003 due to failure of the Gujarat police to do a proper investigation, was advised by the NHRC to move the Supreme Court with Harish Salve representing her. This time, the Supreme Court handed over the reinvestigation of the case to the CBI and ordered a retrial in Maharashtra.

In view of the partisanship of the Gujarat police in the Best Bakery and Bilkis Bano cases, the Supreme Court stayed the trial of nine select cases in November 2003, including the Godhra train burning case, and the Naroda Patiya massacre and Gulbarg Society massacre cases. Harish Salve, used as the amicus curiae by the Supreme Court, highlighted the collusion between the Gujarat government and the accused persons in the nine cases. The Supreme Court waited for 4 years, until the Bilkis Bano case was successfully concluded, to determine a strategy for the nine cases. It set up a Special Investigation Team with a mix of three serving police officers from Gujarat and two retired ones from outside Gujarat. Part of the rationale for such a mix was that the local members would have the advantage of familiarity with the cases. But the Court was also possibly cognizant of the fact that handing over the cases entirely to a central government agency, now run by the rival Congress party, may be seen as a violation of federalism.