New Delhi: The Supreme Court has listed the hearing of activist Teesta Setalvad’s bail plea in connection with the Gujarat 2002 riots case to August 30.
The hearing was postponed after solicitor general Tushar Mehta, appearing on behalf of the Gujarat government, sought additional time to make some corrections in the government’s response to the case.
Initially, a three-judge bench led by Justice U.U. Lalit had asked Mehta to submit the response at 2 pm on Thursday. To this, Mehta had responded that there was nothing special about the case and that Setalvad was in custody in accordance with the law.
Justice Lalit, in turn, had said that the court was concerned that the person is behind bars. “We have to test whether her incarceration is needed,” he said, according to Livelaw.in.
The apex court had earlier agreed to hear Setalvad’s plea for interim relief on Thursday despite the proceedings pending before the Gujarat high court. On August 22, the apex court sought a response from the Gujarat government on the bail plea of Setalvad, who was arrested in June in the case.
The Gujarat high court, on August 3, issued a notice to the state government on the bail plea of Setalvad and fixed the matter for hearing on September 19.
Setalvad’s counsel, Kapil Sibal, had told the apex court on August 22 that allegations in the FIR were a “recitation” of proceedings that had happened and culminated in the judgment of the apex court on a petition filed by Zakia Jafri.
He had argued that the genesis of the case emanated from the apex court order and that was why the FIR had been filed.
The top court had on June 24 dismissed a plea filed by Zakia Jafri, the wife of former Congress MP Ehsaan Jafri who was killed in Ahmedabad during the riots, triggered by the torching of a coach of Sabarmati Express by a mob near Godhra station on February 27, 2002.
As many as 59 passengers were charred to death in the incident.
A sessions court at Ahmedabad, on July 30, rejected the bail applications of Setalvad and former Director General of Police R.B. Sreekumar in the case, saying that if they were released, it will send a message to wrongdoers that a person can level allegations with impunity and get away with it.
Setalvad and former Director General of Police (DGP) R.B. Sreekumar, both arrested in June, were accused of fabricating evidence to frame “innocent people” in the post-Godhra riots cases.
They are lodged in the Sabarmati central jail. Sreekumar has also moved the high court for bail.
Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, the third accused in the case, has not applied for bail. Bhatt was already in jail for another criminal matter when he was arrested in this case.
They were arrested by the Ahmedabad city crime branch in June after a First Information Report (FIR) was registered against them under Indian Penal Code sections 468 (forgery for cheating) and 194 (fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offences).
Mumbai-based Setalvad and Sreekumar were arrested within a couple of days after the Supreme Court on June 24 dismissed a petition filed by Zakia Jafri. The Wire
