The Supreme Court on Wednesday has given a big relief to activist Teesta Setalvad. The Supreme Court awarded her regular bail in the case of Fabricating Evidence related to the Gujarat Riots of 2002. While pronouncing the order, the Supreme Court said, “Gujarat High Court’s order is quashed and set aside, Protection granted to Teesta Setalvad by this court shall be extended. Her passport will remain in custody. Petitioner shall not attempt to influence witnesses.”
When the ASG, SV Raju, lamented that protection can be misused by the accused, the Supreme Court said, “If prosecution feels any attempt is made to influence any witness, the State will be at liberty to move an application directly before this court for modification of our order, We clarify that none of these observations made in the impugned order or by us will influence trial court at stage of trial.”
The Matter of Protection from Arrest to Teesta Setalvad was heard by the bench of Justice BR Gavai and Justice Deepankar Duuta.
Setalvad was arrested by the Gujarat police in June 2022 on the charge of “fabricating evidence” related to the riots in February, with the aim of implicating Narendra Modi in the anti-Muslim violence that took the lives of more than 1,000 people when he was Chief Minister. The provocation was the PIL she had filed along with riot survivor Zakia Jafri that accused the then CM and his administration of being complicit in the violence and subsequent cover-up. The Supreme Court last year dismissed the PIL and suggested Setalvad be prosecuted for “abuse of process”.
She was released on interim bail after spending two months in jail but her plea for regular bail was turned down by the Gujarat High Court on 1 July 2023.
Objecting to her bail plea at the high court, public prosecutor Mitesh Amin submitted that “the petitioner with her two tools–police officer RB Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt–together hatched the conspiracy to propagate the larger conspiracy aspect. She was also a tool in the hands of a politician of a political party.”
