No Supreme Court order on Modi, magistrate asked to decide

         New Delhi, Sep 12 (PTI) In a relief to Chief Minister of
 west Indian state of Gujarat Narendra Modi, the Indian Supreme
 Court on Monday refused to pass any order on his alleged
 inaction to contain the 2002 Gujarat riots after the Godhra
 carnage and referred the matter to the concerned magistrate in
 Ahmedabad for a decision.
        A three-judge bench headed by Justice D K Jain directed
 the SIT, which is probing the riot cases, to submit its final
 report before the magistrate who was asked to decide whether
 to proceed against Modi and 63 others, which includes senior
 government officials.
        The bench made it clear that there was no need for it to
 further monitor the riot cases.
        The bench also comprising justices P Sathasivam and
 Aftab Alam said in case the magistrate decides to drop
 proceedings against Modi and others, he has to hear the plea
 of slain Member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri's widow Zakia Jafri,
 who had filed a complaint against the Gujarat Chief Minister.
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        The court passed the order on a petition by Zakia Jafri
 alleging that Modi and 62 top government officials
 deliberately refused to take action to contain the state-wide
 riots, triggered by the February 27, 2002 Godhra train
 carnage.
        Jafri, who lost her husband Ehsan Jafri, a former
 Congress MP in Gulberg Housing Society massacre during riots,
 had told the apex court that a proper probe should be carried
 out by the SIT, headed by former CBI chief R K Raghavan, into
 her allegations of inaction and various acts of omission and
 commission by Modi and others after the riots.
        The apex court had earlier handed over the task of
 probing the case to SIT which submitted its report in the
 court.
        After the SIT filed its probe report in a sealed cover,
 the court had also asked senior advocate Raju Ramachandran,
 who is assisting it as amicus curie, to analyse the SIT probe
 findings and file a confidential report on it.
        Ramachandran subsequently had submitted his report to
 the court, which passed the order after going through the
 reports by SIT and Ramachandran and referred the case back to
 the concerned Ahmedabad magistrate to decide the further
 course of action in the case.

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        Ramachandran's report filed in a sealed cover had
 analysed the SIT probe findings and evidence adduced by it in
 the case.
        Ramachandran, assisting the bench in nine riot cases,
 had submitted his report on the direction of the apex court
 which had on May 5 sought an "independent overview" of the
 evidence recorded by the Special Investigation Team (SIT).
        The court had asked Ramachandran to analyse the SIT
 probe findings, take comments and statements of the witnesses
 and, if needed, interact with them for an "objective"
 assessment of the evidence.
        The bench had on July 28 said it would pass the order on
 the basis of the report submitted by the amicus.
        The court had also turned down the plea of the state
 government seeking a copy of the report and said it would be
 given only at the appropriate stage. PTI AAC
 AGL