Supreme Court extends interim protection to activist Teesta Setalvad in 2002 Godhra riots case

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday extended the interim protection given to activist Teesta Setalvad from arrest in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots.

A three-judge bench of Justices B R Gavai, A S Bopanna and Dipankar Datta also issued notice to the Gujarat government on Setalvad’s plea and posted the matter for hearing on July 19. It also asked parties to file documents by July 15. “We will hear it on July 19. Interim order to continue”, the bench ordered.

Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, who appeared with Solicitor General Tushar Mehta for the Gujarat government, told the apex court that the government needed time to translate some documents.

Senior advocate Kapil Sibal appeared for Setalvad. Setalvad approached the apex court when the Gujarat High Court rejected her regular bail last Saturday and asked her to surrender immediately. On the same day, she approached the top court and, in a special sitting, a three-judge bench of the apex court granted relief to Setalvad from arrest.

The matter was placed before the three-judge bench after a two-judge bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Prashant Kumar Mishra, in the evening, differed on granting interim protection to her and referred the matter to Chief Justice of India to constitute a larger bench.

Before the High Court’s recent order, she was protected against coercive actions because of the Supreme Court’s interim bail order of September 2022. Last Saturday, the three-judge bench observed that High Court “was totally wrong in not granting interim protection even for one week” to Setalvad.

The Solicitor General, during the previous hearing, said, “It’s not an ordinary case; somebody takes institutions for a ‘joy ride’. The country and state were maligned for decades. She wrote to Geneva”, the SG said.

Setalvad was arrested by the Gujarat Police on June 25, 2022, on an FIR by the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) on alleged charges of conspiring to falsely implicate innocent people in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Charges were framed against her under sections 468 (forgery for cheating) and 194 (fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offences) of the Indian Penal Code.

Later, on September 2 last year, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Teesta. The SIT formed to probe the case has alleged that Setalvad and Sreekumar were part of a larger conspiracy carried out at the behest of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel to destabilise the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Narendra Modi, who was the Chief Minister of Gujarat at the time.

Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt is also an accused in the case. The FIR against Setalvad, Sreekumar and Bhatt was registered after the Supreme Court had, on June 24, dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit given by the SIT to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several others in 2002 Gujarat riots.

Ehsan Jafri was among 69 people killed during the violence at Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002. Zakia Jafri has challenged the SIT’s clean chit to 64 people, including Narendra Modi, who was the Gujarat Chief Minister during the riots in the State. She had alleged a “larger conspiracy” behind the post-Godhra incident riots.

However, the SIT in the apex court had opposed the plea of Jafri saying there is a sinister plot behind the complaint to probe the “larger conspiracy” behind the 2002 Gujarat riots and the original complaint by Jafri was directed by Teesta Setalvad, who levelled allegations just to keep the pot boiling. (ANI)