Today, the Supreme Court of India has extended the interim protection from arrest and surrender for social activist Teesta Setalvad until July 19. This decision comes in response to Setalvad’s bail plea in a forgery case related to the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat. The Supreme Court has also issued a notice to the Gujarat government regarding this matter.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Setalvad, a prominent civil rights activist and secretary of the NGO ‘Citizens for Justice and Peace’, is under scrutiny for allegedly fabricating evidence and instituting false proceedings in relation to the Gujarat riots conspiracy case. The case was lodged against her following the dismissal of a petition by Zakia Ehsan Jafri alleging a larger conspiracy during the 2002 Gujarat riots. The petition had challenged the closure report filed by a special investigation team (SIT) discarding the allegations of a larger conspiracy by high state functionaries including the then-chief minister Narendra Modi and 63 others in the communal violence that broke out in Gujarat in February 2002.
The Supreme Court had previously observed that the petition was filed with ‘ulterior motives’ to ‘keep the pot boiling’. Following these observations, an FIR was registered against retired state DGP RB Sreekumar, Setalvad, and former IPS Officer Sanjiv Bhatt charging them with criminal conspiracy, forgery, and other offences under the Indian Penal Code.
Setalvad was taken into custody from her residence in Mumbai on June 25, 2022, by the Gujarat Police’s Anti-Terrorism Squad. Her bail plea was rejected by a lower court in Ahmedabad on July 30, 2022, which was subsequently challenged before the Gujarat High Court. When the matter reached the Supreme Court, a bench headed by Chief Justice UU Lalit granted Setalvad interim bail in September of last year, noting that she had been in custody for two months and the investigative machinery had the advantage of custodial interrogation for a period of seven days.
On July 1, the Gujarat High Court rejected Setalvad’s application for regular bail and directed her to surrender immediately. The high court observed that the social activist had an “intention to tarnish the image of the then-chief minister (Narendra Modi) and thereby to send him to jail and compel him to resign” and accused her of polarizing people of a ‘particular community’.
In response to this, the Supreme Court, in a special late-night hearing, extended the interim stay of the Gujarat High Court’s order for a period of one week. The court noted that the earlier bench had acknowledged that the petitioner, being a woman, was entitled to special protection under Section 437 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
The case continues to unfold, with the Supreme Court’s decision to extend Setalvad’s interim protection marking the latest development in this ongoing legal saga. The court’s final decision on Setalvad’s bail plea is eagerly awaited by legal observers and human rights activists alike.