The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear on Wednesday a plea by social activist Teesta Setalvad challenging the Gujarat high court order which had rejected her plea for regular bail and directed her to surrender immediately in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence to frame innocent people in 2002 post-Godhra riots cases.
All 'right-thinking citizens' should rally behind Setalvad, they said.
The Supreme Court of India has dismissed the bail plea of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1990 custodial death case. The court ruled that there was no merit in his plea for bail or suspension of sentence. Bhatt, along with co-accused Pravinsinh Zala, was found guilty of murder, voluntarily causing hurt, and criminal intimidation by the Gujarat High Court in 2024. The case stems from the death of Prabhudas Vaishnani, who was detained by Bhatt following a communal riot in Jamjodhpur in 1990. Vaishnani's brother alleged that Bhatt and other police officers tortured him in custody, leading to his death.
A sessions court on Tuesday granted anticipatory bail to social activist Teesta Setalvad in connection with a case pertaining to filing false affidavits in the name of post-Godhra riot victims.
Additional metropolitan magistrate MV Chauhan committed the case to the sessions court in Ahmedabad for trial against Setalvad, former state director general of police RB Sreekumar and ex-Indian Police Service officer Sanjiv Bhatt.
Former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa's, at the launch of his new political party, the Karnataka Janata Party had claimed that it was secular in nature. However, social activist Teesta Setalvad, who is in Karnataka, has said that Yeddyurappa needs to do a lot more to prove that he is secular by nature.
Justice Ajay Khanvilkar disposed off the anticipatory bail application of Setalvad and her associate, Rais Khan, after the Gujarat government informed the court that they had not filed an FIR against them.
Social activist Teesta Setalvad on Wednesday welcomed the court's ruling in the 2002 Naroda Patiya violence case, which convicted 32 people including Bharatiya Janata Party MLA and former minister Maya Kodnani of murder and conspiracy.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT), to be headed by a deputy inspector general (DIG) of Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS), will probe the case against activist Teesta Setalvad and former Indian Police Service officers R B Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt who have been accused of abusing the process of law by fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in connection with the 2002 Gujarat communal riots, a senior official said on Sunday.
Setalvad questioned in the application: "Who arranged for the press conference (in which Zaheera retracted her earlier statement)?"
Setalvad said working on a deeply polarising issue among the public is not an easy one and added that the impact of social media on polarization is also overwhelming.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday questioned the CBI and the Gujarat government as to why they want to send social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand back in jail after they have been out for over seven years on anticipatory bail.
A local court on Monday ordered a police inquiry into the defamation suit filed against activist Teesta Setalvad by her former associate Rais Khan.
A sessions court in Ahmedabad on Saturday rejected the bail applications of activist Teesta Setalvad and former director general of police R B Sreekumar, arrested for allegedly fabricating documents to 'frame innocent people' in 2002 riots cases.
Sehrunnisa alleged that Setalvad and her colleague, Rais Khan, had visited her house in Mumbai over a month ago and threatened to shoot her.
A special investigation team (SIT) on Wednesday submitted a charge sheet against activist Teesta Setalvad, retired director general of police R B Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots cases.
Zahira alleged that Setalvad had amassed huge wealth by illegal means.
Social activist Teesta Setalvad on Monday claimed there is 'strong' evidence against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, whom the Special Investigation Team has given a clean chit in the post-Godhra riot case, in a complaint filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of slain ex-Congress Member of Parliament Ehsan Jafri.
The apex court-appointed committee probing the veracity of the statements made by her and social activist Teesta Setalvad said this while justifying its approach towards the two while examining them.
Accusing Teesta of inducing Zahira and her family, the MLA from Vadodara alleged Mohammad Vora, whose aspiration to be a Mayor could not materialise due to his opposition, used the opportunity to settle political scores during Gujarat riots.
The Mumbai-based activist, currently in jail in Gujarat, has sought bail.
A bench of justices Abhay S Oka and Prashant Kumar Mishra, which heard the matter in a special hearing, urged the Chief Justice of India to assign the matter to a larger bench.
Human Rights activist Teesta Setalvad said on Monday that she was relieved following the clean chit given to her by a SC-appointed committee of charges of inducement levelled against her by the key witness in Best Bakery case Zaheera Sheikh.
A former aide of activist Teesta Setalvad has moved the Bombay high court seeking retrial of the 2002 Best Bakery case alleging that the latter not only fabricated evidence and falsely implicated innocent persons but also "managed" the witnesses.
The Supreme Court on Monday termed as "mistake" its earlier order extending interim protection from arrest granted to Teesta Setalvad and her husband, indicating that the relief was granted by a two-judge bench earlier instead of three.
The committee, which began its probe on April 6, has been entrusted to find out in four months who was telling the\ntruth -- Zahira or Teesta.
Zakia Jafri, the wife of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed in the 2002 Gujarat riots, died on Saturday in Ahmedabad at the age of 86. Ehsan Jafri was among 69 persons who were killed inside Gulbarg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Ahmedabad, on February 28, 2002, a day after coaches of the Sabarmati Express train were burnt in Godhra, resulting in the deaths of 59 'karsevaks' returning from Ayodhya. The incident triggered horrific rioting across the state. Zakia Jafri hit the national headlines as she waged a legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court in a bid to hold top political leaders accountable for the large conspiracy for the riots post the Godhra train burning episode. Her son Tanveer Jafri said that his mother was visiting his sister's house in Ahmedabad when she complained of feeling uneasy. The doctor who was called in declared her dead at around 11:30 am. Social activist Teesta Setalvad, who was co-complainant in Jafri's protest petition in the Supreme Court, posted on X that Zakia Jafri was a compassionate leader of the human rights community.
The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to social activist Teesta Setalvad, arrested on June 25 for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame 'innocent people' in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases.
The Gujarat high court on Wednesday issued notices to the state government and a complainant on a plea by social activist Teesta Setalvad seeking quashing of an FIR in a case in which she is accused of putting objectionable pictures of Hindu deities on a popular social networking site.
Public prosecutor Sudhir Brahmbhatt opposed the plea, alleging that Setalvad hadn't cooperated with the probe.
A group of noted former civil servants on Wednesday sought withdrawal of the Supreme Court's "gratuitous observations" against social activist Teesta Sitalvad and others while upholding the SIT's clean chit to the then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 communal riots in the state.
The Supreme Court on Thursday wondered why the Gujarat high court has listed the bail plea of activist Teesta Setalvad for hearing on September 19, six weeks after it sent a notice to the state government seeking a response to her application, and asked the state to inform it by 2 pm on Friday about whether such a precedent existed there.
SC stepped into the row over the transfer Setalvad's anticipatory bail plea to a new bench.
The Supreme Court on Monday sought the Gujarat government's response on social activist Teesta Setalvad's bail plea and posted the matter for hearing on August 25.
The Special Investigation Team which investigated complaints against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and others in a riot case, told a court on that activist Teesta Setalvad might tamper with evidence if allowed to inspect original documents of the probe.
The Apex court, however, said that the interim order providing protection from arrest to Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand shall be extended till the larger bench takes up the matter.
Gujarat police opposed in the Supreme Court the anticipatory bail plea of Teesta Setalvad.
Bhatt was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1990 custodial death case in Jamnagar and 20 years in jail in a 1996 case relating to planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer in Palanpur. He is currently lodged in the Rajkot Central Jail.
The home ministry also ordered a probe by the Computer Emergency Response Team-India to ascertain whether there was hacking of government software systems as there have been several instances where licences of NGOs under scrutiny were renewed automatically.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday questioned the Gujarat government for initiating a probe against social activist Teesta Setalvad for her alleged role in a case of illegal exhumation of the bodies of the 2002 riot victims, saying it is a "spurious" case to victimise her. "This is a hundred percent spurious case to victimise the petitioner (Setalvad)," said a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai.
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