New Delhi: The Supreme Court docket on Thursday puzzled why the Gujarat Excessive Court docket has listed the bail plea of activist Teesta Setalvad for listening to on September 19, six weeks after it despatched a discover to the state authorities looking for a response to her utility, and requested the state to tell it by 2 pm on Friday about whether or not such a precedent existed there. A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia posted the plea of Setalvad for additional listening to on Friday. Setalvad was arrested for allegedly fabricating proof to border “innocent people” within the 2002 Gujarat riots instances.
“We will hear this case tomorrow at 2 pm. Give us instances where a lady accused in such cases has got such dates from the high court. Either this lady has been made an exception….How can the court give this date? Is this standard practice in Gujarat?” an apparently displeased CJI stated.
The Gujarat Excessive Court docket had on August 3 issued a discover to the state authorities on the bail plea of Setalvad and stuck the matter for listening to on September 19. An Ahmedabad periods courtroom had on July 30 rejected the bail purposes of Setalvad and former Director Common of Police R B Sreekumar within the case, saying that in the event that they had been launched, it’s going to ship a message to wrongdoers that an individual can degree allegations with impunity and get away with it.
Setalvad and Sreekumar, each arrested in June, are accused of fabricating proof to border “innocent people” within the post-Godhra riots instances of 2002. They’re lodged within the Sabarmati central jail. Sreekumar has additionally moved the excessive courtroom for bail. Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, the third accused within the case, has not utilized for bail. Bhatt was already in jail for one more legal matter when he was arrested on this case.
They had been arrested by the Ahmedabad metropolis crime department in June after a First Info Report (FIR) was registered towards them beneath Indian Penal Code sections 468 (forgery for dishonest) and 194 (fabricating false proof with intent to acquire conviction for capital offences).
Mumbai-based Setalvad and Sreekumar had been arrested inside a few days after the Supreme Court docket on June 24 dismissed a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband and former Congress MP Ehsaan Jafri was killed throughout the riots in Ahmedabad, difficult the SIT’s clear chit to 64 individuals within the riots, together with the then chief minister Narendra Modi.
