NEW DELHI: Social activist Teesta Setalvad was on Wednesday granted bail by the Supreme Court in a criminal case relating to the 2002 Gujarat riots.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna and Dipankar Datta stated that Setalvad's custody was not necessary since the case involved documentary evidence and the chargesheet had already been filed.
Calling the observations in the Gujarat High Court order “perverse”, the bench, while setting aside the HC's July 1 order, said, “We are at pains to say that HC's order makes for interesting reading running into 100 pages. On the one hand, the judge has spent pages on how it is not necessary to consider evidence to point whether a prima facie case is made out or not. The judge has interestingly observed that since the petitioner after filing of FIR or chargesheet has neither challenged the same under 226, 482 or under art 32 before this court, it is not permissible for her to say that a prima facie case is not made out. If the observations by the judge is to be accepted, then no application of bail at the pre-trial stage could be entertained unless the accused files app u/s 482 CrPC or Art 226 or 32. To say the least, the findings are totally perverse.”
Challenging the HC's order, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Setalvad, said that out of the offences registered against her, all were bailable except 194 & 468. He also said even if the allegations made in the FIR are taken at face value, a case under sections 194 & 468 is not made out. He further said that the allegations were that she influenced certain citizens to swear false affidavits which were used as a part of the investigation and that there was no allegation against her that she had fabricated false evidence.
Opposing the bail, ASG SV Raju, appearing for the Gujarat government, said that a case under section 194 was made out against her. He said a number of persons had deposed that the appellant had forced them to give affidavits in order to implicate officials in the state government and an attempt was made to destabilise the democratically elected government. He alleged that she accepted a huge amount of money and hence should not be granted bail.
Setalvad was arrested on June 25 by the Anti-Terrorism Squad, Gujarat, within 24 hours of the top court dismissing a plea preferred by Zakia Jafri for a probe into the larger conspiracy case behind the riots. Apart from that, a criminal case was also registered against Sanjiv Bhatt and RB Sreekumar for the same offence. Setalvad was protected until now due to the Supreme Court's September 2, 2022 ruling releasing her on interim bail by a bench of ex-CJI UU Lalit and Justices SR Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia.
Since the single-judge bench of Justice Nirzar S Desai while rejecting her regular bail application had further turned down her plea of staying the operation of its order for 30 days, Setalvad had approached the Supreme Court. As there was a difference in opinion with regards to the interim protection between two SC judges, the matter was placed before a three-judge bench. Ruling that the single judge (Justice Nirzar S Desai) should have granted her some “breathing time” to surrender, the Supreme Court in a special Saturday night hearing had stayed the HC's order for one week.