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Gujarat Riots 'Conspiracy' Case | 'Wait For Some More Days': High Court Refuses Urgent Hearing In Teesta Setalvad's Quashing Plea
Sparsh Upadhyay
9 Aug 2023 5:30 PM IST
The Gujarat High Court today refused to grant an urgent hearing to social activist Teesta Setalvad in her plea to quash the case lodged against her by Gujarat Police accusing her of fabricating documents so as to implicate high government functionaries including the then CM Narendra Modi in relation to the 2002 Gujarat riots.When the matter was mentioned earlier in the morning today,...
The Gujarat High Court today refused to grant an urgent hearing to social activist Teesta Setalvad in her plea to quash the case lodged against her by Gujarat Police accusing her of fabricating documents so as to implicate high government functionaries including the then CM Narendra Modi in relation to the 2002 Gujarat riots.
When the matter was mentioned earlier in the morning today, Justice Sandeep N. Bhatt remarked that he can not grant urgent hearing especially when admission matters of 2018 are still pending in his court.
"If your matter reaches today then I will hear it but if not then the shortest possible date will be given. You are aware of the practice of this court. We will try to take this up, but I don't think it is possible", Justice Bhatt said.
Thereafter, at around 5 PM, when the Court was about to rise, the matter was again mentioned by Setalvad's Counsel Arjun Joshi saying that the matter was pending for admission, Justice Bhatt said:
"Even today, we could not reach matters of admission of 2018. Wait for some more days...Not possible. The earliest date is September 18. Every day, there are more than 250 matters. I can't accommodate everyone. Your matter will certainly take some more time. On September 18, I have relatively fewer matters, so then I can accommodate you or give any other date, thereafter."
Now, the matter is likely to be heard on September 18.
It may be noted that Setalvad moved to the High Court soon after a city sessions court in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad dismissed her discharge application in relation to the case. On August 3, Justice Samir J. Dave recused from hearing her plea
Earlier on July 19, the Apex Court granted regular bail to her in the case.
A bench comprising Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna and Dipankar Datta quashed the Gujarat High Court's order which denied her regular bail after opining that the High Court's observations were "perverse" and "contradictory".
Case against Setalvad
Civil rights activist and secretary of NGO ‘Citizens for Justice and Peace’ Teesta Setalvad is under the scanner for allegedly fabricating evidence and instituting false proceedings in relation to the Gujarat riots conspiracy case. A first information report (FIR) was lodged against Setalvad in 2022, one day after the apex court dismissed a petition filed by Zakia Ehsan Jafri alleging a larger conspiracy during the 2002 Gujarat riots.
In this plea, Setalvad along with Zakia Ehsan Jafri 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 the western state of Gujarat in February 2002.
A three-judge bench headed by Justice AM Khanwilkar observed that the petition was filed with ‘ulterior motives’ to ‘keep the pot boiling’. The top court further said that action should be taken against those who abused the process of law. In its order, the court also observed that a ‘coalesced effort’ of disgruntled officials from Gujarat and others was to make false sensational revelations, which the Gujarat SIT ‘exposed’. The bench remarked:
“Intriguingly, the present proceedings have been pursued for the last 16 years… to keep the pot boiling, obviously, for ulterior design. As a matter of fact, all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law.”
Pursuant to 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.
The FIR in question quoted extensively from the Supreme Court's order. On June 25, the Gujarat Police's Anti-Terrorism Squad took Setalvad into custody from her residence in Mumbai. Her bail plea was rejected by a lower court in Ahmedabad on July 30, which was challenged before the Gujarat High Court.
When the matter travelled in appeal to 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, a single-judge bench of the Gujarat High Court rejected her regular bail plea. This order was stayed by a bench headed by Supreme Court judge BR Gavai in a special sitting on the same day, and later quashed. Not only this, a bench comprising Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna and Dipankar Datta also opined that the Gujarat High Court’s decision of denying Setalvad regular bail was ‘perverse’ and ‘contradictory’.
