A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court with Justices AM Khanwilkar, Dinesh Maheshwari, and CT Ravikumar, while dismissing the plea,noted that the claim of criminal conspiracy in the Gujarat riots by the then CM of Gujarat (Narendra Modi) and other State functionaries was absolutely false. “The structure of larger criminal conspiracy at the highest level has been erected. The same stands collapsed like a house of cards, after thorough investigation by the SIT,” the bench said,in a landmark judgment that has blown to smithereens, the allegations of those, who driven by nothing but visceral hatred for Narendra Modi, peddled vicious lies and anti-Modi propaganda for 20 long years.During the course of the hearing, Kapil Sibal and others appearing for Jafri, had essentially argued that the special investigation team (SIT) had not conducted a thorough probe into the matter and had ignored crucial evidence including certain sting operations by Tehelka, which suggested a larger conspiracy of complicity in the highest echelons of the Gujarat State’s power structure. Sibal’s frivolous arguments, sans any credible proof, were resoundingly and rightfully dismissed by the top Court. Dismissing the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of Congress leader Ehsaan Jafri, the Court raised questions over the credibility of the petitioner and said, “Appellant in filing the protest petition had the gumption to assert that the list of persons was not exhaustive besides naming new persons as offenders. In the name of protest petition, appellant was also indirectly questioning the decisions rendered by the Courts in other cases, including sub judice matters, for reasons best known to her. She was obviously doing so under dictation of someone. In fact, the sizeable contents of the protest petition are founded on the affidavits filed by those persons, whose versions have been found to be replete with falsehoods,” the Supreme Court bench stated.
The top Court also noted that the SIT had formed its opinion after considering all the materials collated during the investigation. “The question of further investigation would have arisen only on the availability of new material/information in connection with the allegation of larger conspiracy at the highest level, which is not forthcoming in this case,” the Supreme Court order read. “We uphold the decision of the Magistrate in accepting the final report dated 08.02.2012 submitted by the SIT as it is, rejecting the protest petition filed by the appellant (Zakia Jafri). We don’t countenance the submission of the appellant regarding infraction of rule of law regarding investigation and the approach of the Magistrate and the High Court in dealing with the final report. Accordingly, we hold the appeal is devoid of merits and deserves to be dismissed in aforementioned terms” – with those words, the Supreme Court of India put paid to yet another sinister plan of PM Narendra Modi’s detractors & persecutors to fix him in what is famously known as Gujarat riots’ case.
Leaders like Narendra Modi are born once in a millennium. The Supreme Court upholding the clean chit given to Modi by the SIT, brings to an end the vicious propaganda of the Congress and it’s family retainers, the durbaari Lutyens’ media, the corrupt, Leftist ecosystem, the Modi hating self styled NGOs and an entire battery of national and international players, who tried their level best to halt Modi’s politically meteoric rise, but failed completely. PM Modi deserves unabashed applause because he bore every insult, every canard, every humiliation with a stoic dignity, that is rare. Not once did his faith in India’s judicial process waver or falter. Not once did he use State power to defeat his detractors. Not once did BJP karyakartas take to the streets to protest against the probe against Modi.
This is in sharp contrast to the shameful vandalism and thuggery that was on display, with Congress workers taking to the streets, when jaded Congress scion, Rahul Gandhi was being probed by the enforcement directorate (ED), recently, for his reported involvement in the National Herald related scam. Modi, like any law abiding citizen, allowed the law of the land for almost two decades,to take its course, without once using his status, power or privilege to stymie the judicial process. And do not forget that Modi has wielded unparalleled clout, after having been CM and then PM, in the last 20 years. They say power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But in the case of Narendra Modi, the power that the electorate bestowed on him repeatedly and relentlessly was never abused or misused and that is essentially what separates Modi, the karmayogi, from the routine paraphernalia of Opposition leaders who have allowed success to get the better of them. Today, Modi stands vindicated, with the legal process finally giving him an unconditional clean chit,leaving his detractors exposed, shamed, pulverized and marginalised.
The ceaseless persecution of PM Narendra Modi, initiated at the behest of Congress and its ecosystem saw more than 60 investigations by government appointed commissions, self-proclaimed activists’ headed tribunals, media bodies, various national and international NGOs and Supreme Court appointed SIT. While every impartial probe gave clean chit to Modi, the Modi-hating lobby opposed to him didn’t stop trying–not even when he is into the 9th year of his tenure as Prime Minister of India,after spending more than 12 years as Gujarat’s Chief Minister. No wonder the Supreme Court was forced to make an observation that, “the proceedings have been pursued for the last 16 years to keep the pot boiling, obviously for ulterior design.” Going a step further, the Supreme Court held that “all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law.”
It is said revenge is a dish, best served cold. Well, in Modi’s case, his exoneration by the highest Court of the land, is surely sweet revenge against an entire “Congressi-fied” ecosystem that was served a damning indictment by the Supreme Court, which called out the bluff of this anti-Modi lobby. In its severe indictment of the petitioner (Zakia Jafri) and her backers, India’s top Court said, “it appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the State of Gujarat along with others, was to create sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge.” This observation of the top Court is evident in the way malicious proceedings were initiated against Narendra Modi in 2002 by vested interest groups like Teesta Setalvad, Rahul Sharma & Mukul Sinha and with active financial and institutional backing provided by the UPA government headed by the Congress Party, then. It is important to mention here that Zakia Jafri became a petitioner in the Gujarat riots’ case for the first time in 2005-06, three to four years after Gujarat riots. The Supreme Court had appointed an SIT for investigation into the Gujarat riots much earlier, in 2003-04 and this SIT was submitting periodic reports to the top Court.
The “Teesta” gang used Zakia Jafri as cannon fodder, exploiting her emotionally and using her as a pliable tool for their nefarious designs against Modi. Teesta and her husband Javed Anand claim to be social activists but it is now widely known how this duo used their NGO to funnel funds for illegitimate purposes. Money raised for victims of Gulbarg society were used by Teesta and Javed to fund the duo’s foreign vacations and to buy expensive champagne and lingerie. What can be more shameful than usurping money meant for riot victims and then splurging it on hairdos at beautysalons,which is precisely what Teesta did. The dubious antecedents and mala-fide motives of the highly corrupt Teesta Setalvad are in the public domain and not based on hearsay. In fact,the apex Court has castigated Teesta in no uncertain terms, on how she used Zakia Jafri to abuse the judicial process, only because she wanted to hit back at Modi. The long arm of the law finally caught up with this devious, repeat offender, Teesta, with the Gujarat ATS arresting her on June 25,2022. Teesta’s case will be investigated by ATS DIG of Gujarat, Deepan Bhadran.
Teesta has done it all–from embezzling funds meant for charity, to raising foreign funds for her NGO CJP,by flouting FCRA norms, to using Zakia Jafri as cannon fodder,for her ulterior designs. Former IPS officer RB Sreekumar, arrested by Gujarat Police too on June 25,2022, for fake and misleading information on post-Godhra Gujarat violence, was also involved in framing scientist Nambi Narayanan in the fake ‘ISRO spy case’. RB Sreekumar, Sanjiv Bhatt and Teesta Setalvad have been booked under sections 468, 471, 194, 211, 218, and 120B of the IPC, for various criminal offences including forgery, perjury and wilfully lying under oath. Congress Party’s unbridled support for Teesta is evident from the fact that she was awarded the Rajiv Gandhi National Sadbhavna award in 2002 and with a Padma Shri, no less, in 2007.Tainted former cop Sanjiv Bhatt was directed to undergo life-imprisonment by a Sessions Court in Jamnagar in June 2019 for involvement in custodial death of Jamjodhpur resident, Prabhudas Vaishnani in November 1990.It does not take much to realise that Teesta,Bhatt, Sreekumar and others like them are all people who were propped up by the Congress leadership at 10 Janpath and all these dubious characters are either in prison or facing a probe as they sought to derail and abuse India’s judicial system, in their hatred for one man–Narendra Modi. And the common glue that binds all these criminal elements is that they were generously gratified by the Congress, in lieu of their ceaseless hate propaganda against Modi.
The Godhra train burning occurred on the morning of 27 February 2002, in which 59 Hindu pilgrims and karsevaks returning from Ayodhya, were set on fire by a frenzied Muslim inside the Sabarmati Express train near the Godhra railway station in Gujarat,as noted in the joint report of former High Court judge K.G Shah and former Supreme Court judge, G.T.Nanavati. It is shameful that ex judge U C.Banerjee ( a Lalu Yadav acolyte) had the gall to call the Godhra train murder of 59 innocent people as just another accident. Taking a cue from Banerjee, till this day, the very lobby that has used every trick in the book to sully,malign and demonise PM Modi,did not have the basic decency and humanity to even express regret and remorse about the horrific Godhra train burning. And then these selfish, Leftist lobbies and urban naxals have the audacity to call themselves human right activists! The Godhra train burning incident set in motion the Gujarat riots. Violence can never be a solution. Retributive justice cannot be rationalised, but to demonize Hindus and a CM who later became PM and to brazenly ignore that 59 Hindus were burnt alive by a deracinated, Muslim mob, needed to be called out. And the Supreme Court’s historic judgement of June 24,2002,did precisely that.
Amidst extremely provocative and open calls for treating Modi like a pariah by the likes of Siddharth Varadarajan, Modi, exhibiting a rare degree of boldness, courage, transparency and faith in rule of law, appeared before SIT for 9 hours, without so much as a whimper. Varadarajan repeatedly exhorted the international diaspora to cancel out Modi and Modi was even denied a US visa. But as they say, Karma always comes a full circle. In a befitting reply to the likes of Rajdeep, Burkha and Varadarajan and all his nefarious naysayers, after Modi became PM in 2014,since then he has not only addressed quite a few joint session the US Congress, but has been awarded with some of the highest civilian awards from a large array of countries across the globe. While 5 other Indian PMs before Modi also addressed US Congress in their stints abroad, PM Narendra Modi has the highly rare honour of getting 9 standing ovations and 33 applauses during his 48-minute-long speech, to the US Congress, in June 2016.
Coming back to Teesta, the Supreme Court on June 24,2022,made an observation that the SIT which gave a clean chit to PM Modi in 2010-11 had “fully exposed the falsity of the appellant’s claims after a thorough investigation. Terming Zakia/Teesta’’s submission as “far-fetched and an attempt to undo and undermine the industry of the SIT”,SC called it “questioning the wisdom of the Supreme Court,” in a scathing reply to Zakia, Teesta and her cronies on how they had wilfully abused the judicial process, simply to target Modi.
It is clear from the events of past 20 years and latest SC judgment that the endless saga of Narendra Modi’s persecution by his detractors to propagate Gujarat riot falsehoods as truth and continue their tirade against Modi, not only hardened his personal resolve, but also helped unmask the ugly game of Gujarat riots’ cottage industry anchored by the Congress. But what is bizarre is that the alibi of delivering justice for the riot victims of 2002 got transmogrified into the pursuit for political vengeance against Modi. The whole saga is a tell-tale commentary of how anti-Modi NGO activism by Leftists, Leftist academia, urban naxals and Leftist media has sustained itself as an industry for over a decade, with help from notorious elements both at home and abroad.
The naked attempt to internationalize Gujarat riot was already on but victimization of Narendra Modi began on March 19, 2005, when Shabnam Hashmi wrote an email on behalf of her NGO, ANHAD, to a broader ecosystem of Leftist activists and NGOs across the globe to mount a signature campaign against Modi, then sitting CM of Gujarat. More than 8 years on, Shabnam Hashmi on August 24, 2013, wrote on her facebook page about the launch of a website to expose alleged ‘lies’ of Narendra Modi. In the intervening period is a saga of how a well networked group of Leftist activists in India and spread across the globe have obsessed over every minutiae to do with Narendra Modi in their pursuit of political retribution against him for the 2002 riots, while showing little faith in the Indian Courts. and an Indian Court ordered Investigation. So blatant was the internationalization of Modi’s victimization that, the SC in January 2011, reprimanded activists and NGO lobbies for their report to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on the proceedings of the 10 cases related to the Gujarat riots, being monitored by the Supreme Court. The lobbies didn’t stop at merely writing reports and emails but they even lobbied with multilateral bodies and brought Christof Hendrik Heyns, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary execution, to Gujarat for investigations. They even ran a signature campaign to petition Obama for continuance of visa ban on Modi.
In the final analysis, going by the historic Supreme Court verdict of June 24,2002, there was no State sponsored pogrom in 2002,as claimed by many. Period. Not just Muslims, but Hindus too lost their lives in the 2002 Gujarat riots and hence to paint the 2002 riots as a pogrom against Muslims is nothing but divisive politics that was played brazenly by the then Congress led UPA government. The good part is, truth has finally prevailed and desperate attempts by the Congress, Leftists and the Lutyens’ establishment to tarnish the image of Narendra Modi, have flopped and failed miserably. PM Modi was earlier exonerated by the SIT, Magistrate’s Court, Metropolitan Court, Gujarat High Court and even by the Supreme Court on two earlier occasions.
“We hasten to add that it is only because of the ultra-sensational revelation projected by Mr Sanjiv Bhatt and Mr Haren Pandya, who unabashedly claimed to be privy to the utterances made by the then Chief Minister in an official meeting, the constitutional functionaries and this Court was required to move into action, taking serious note of the same. But, after thorough investigation by the SIT, the falsity of such claim has been fully exposed on the basis of credible indisputable materials collated by the SIT during the investigation in that regard,” the Court noted,
in a damning indictment of both Zakia Jafri and those like Teesta Setalvad who had been instigating Jafri in petition after petition, to frame false charges against Modi.
The latest judgment by the Supreme Court – that came in the 9th year of Modi’s tenure as Indian Prime Minister, is not the first time; various Courts in India gave Narendra Modi the clean chit in the past 20 years too, even when he served as the Chief Minister of Gujarat. No leader anywhere in the world has been subjected to so much scrutiny, so much public glare, so many false allegations, so much unwanted, baseless and needless criticism for actions that were never his to start with and yet emerged taller, stronger, more confident and more invincible than ever before. Modi’s integrity has been validated by India’s highest Court–the Supreme Court. The top Court’s judgment on June 24, 2002,giving a clean chit to the indefatigable Modi, is also a validation of India’s judicial system and the democratic ethos of this great nation.
SanjuVerma is an Economist, National Spokesperson of the BJP and the Bestselling Author of ‘The Modi Gambit’.