New Delhi, July 30 - The Gujarat government Thursday told the Supreme Court that it was set to challenge the court's April 27 order for a probe into the role of Chief Minister Narendra Modi and 62 politicians as well as bureaucrats in the communal violence of 2002.

Senior counsel Mukul Rohtagi, appearing for the Gujarat government, stated this to judges D.K. Jain, P. Sathasivam and Aftab Alam while objecting the court's move to extend the tenure of the special probe panel, headed by former CBI director R.K. Raghvan, till Dec 31.

Rohtagi objected to the court's move saying the 'very constitution of the (probe) panel had been prejudicial to our interest.

'The Special Investigative Team (SIT) had been working beyond the mandate of the April 27 order of the court,' said Rohtagi, adding that the state government was to move the court against the constitution of the panel.

At this the bench said: 'We are not going to stop the investigation as the SIT is functioning only on the court's order passed earlier.'

The probe against Modi and 62 others had been ordered on a lawsuit by Jakia Nasim Ahesan, widow of former Congress MP Ali Ahesan Jafri, 'who was pulled out of his house at Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad by a riotous mob and brutally hacked to death'.

The probe against Modi and others was assigned to the panel headed by Raghavan, who was entrusted earlier also with the task of probing nine major riot cases in the state following the Godhra train burning that ignited the 2002 violence.