AHMEDABAD: Social activist Teesta Setalvad on Monday moved the Gujarat High Court seeking the dismissal of an FIR filed against her and two others — former DGP RB Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt — on suspicion of falsifying evidence in the Gujarat riots in 2002.
A sessions court recently rejected her discharge plea in the case, even as the Supreme Court granted her bail after the Gujarat High Court denied her relief. On Monday, Setalvad moved a plea in the High Court for quashing the FIR. The matter is likely to come up for a hearing in a few days.
Setalvad, Sreekumar and Bhatt were arrested by the city crime branch in June 2022 on the charges of forgery and fabricating evidence with the intent to implicate Gujarat government functionaries in the 2002 riots cases.
An FIR was registered against them after the SC last month dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband, former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, was killed during the riots. While dismissing the petition, the Supreme Court had stated, “It appears to us that a concerted effort of disgruntled officials of the state of Gujarat, together with others, was to create a sensation by making revelations that were false to their own knowledge.”
Soon after the Supreme Court verdict, Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) filed an FIR against activist Teesta Setalvad, former Director General of Police R B Sreekumar, and Former IPS Sanjeev Bhatt for plotting to falsely implicate innocent persons in the Gujarat riots of 2002.
Setalvad has been booked under Sections 468 (forgery for the purpose of cheating) and 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence) of the IPC, among others.
Apart from Gulbarg Society, Setalvad has taken up cases of the Naroda Patiya, Naroda Gam, Sardarpura, Dipda Darwaja, Ode and Best Bakery riot victims.
Earlier last month, Gujarat High Court had asked Teesta to surrender immediately. She scored a major reprieve from the Supreme Court, which granted her bail. Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna and Dipankar Datta set aside the order of the Gujarat High Court rejecting her plea for regular bail amid an investigation for allegedly fabricating evidence in cases related to the riots.
‘Fabricating evidence’
Teesta Setalvad, RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt were arrested by the Ahmedabad crime branch in June 2022 on the charges of forgery and fabricating evidence with the intent to implicate Gujarat government functionaries in the 2002 riots incidents.