SIT chief switches his phone off -Governance Now

SIT chief switches his phone off

After Modi's open letter questioned the "date" of summons

GN Bureau | March 22, 2010

R K Raghavan, who is heading the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), was not available for his reaction to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi's "open letter to the countrymen" Monday evening.

Many journalists who tried to take his reaction were disappointed as Raghavan's mobile phone remained switched off for three hours. He might be in flight to Chennai, according to his family based in that city.

While media reports for the past fortnight quoted Raghavan as saying that Modi was summoned to appear before the SIT on March 21, Modi on Monday noted in his letter that he was not summoned on that date. Modi said "purveyors of untruth" were behind the controversy as media reported that the chief minister had skipped his Sunday summons.

The BJP is likely the raise the summon interpretation issue and might seek inquiry into the leakage of the summons and also "misleading" statements of March 21 date. The BJP Gujarat unit is also likely to approach SIT for an inquiry into the "misleading" date of March 21.

The SIT had not fixed any firm date while issuing a notice for appearance to Modi in the case of murder of former Congress MP Ehsan Jaffrey on February 28, 2002, sources associated with the team said.

They said the notice sought Modi's appearance before SIT on any day during the week beginning March 21. Since he did not confirm if he would choose to appear on the very first day of the week, Raghavan, who was in Chennai, did not rush back to Gandhinagar to hear him.

The SIT thus left up to Modi to decide when he can appear before it for questioning and to clarify on the charges levelled against him and it is yet to get a confirmed date when he would depose before it, the sources added.

The sources said SIT sought to hear Modi at the end of hearing all others before it prepares a report to be submitted to the Supreme Court on the complaint filed by Jaffrey's widow. The court had fixed April 30 as the deadline for its report. They said it was up to Modi to appear and give his side of the story as even otherwise SIT is timebound to submit its report to the apex court.

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