SC grants Teesta Setalvad a week’s protection from arrest

Activist Teesta Setalvad was picked up from Mumbai last year. File Pic

In a late night hearing on Saturday, the Supreme Court granted activist Teesta Setalvad interim protection from arrest for the period of one week. Earlier in the day, the Gujarat High Court had rejected her regular bail plea and directed her to surrender immediately in a case pertaining to the alleged fabrication of evidence to frame innocent people in 2002 post-Godhra riots cases.

While setting the HC order aside, the bench of Justices B R Gavai, A S Bopanna and Dipankar Datta observed, "The question is whether the heavens will fall if the HC extends protection from arrest to Teesta Setalvad." The activist approached the apex court for relief soon after the Gujarat HC's order. She is out of jail after having secured interim bail from the apex court in September last year.

Setalvad was taken into custody on June 25 last year along with former Gujarat Director General of Police R B Sreekumar and ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in an offence registered by Ahmedabad crime branch police for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame "innocent people" in the post-Godhra riots cases.

An Ahmedabad sessions court had on July 30, 2022, rejected the bail applications of Setalvad and Sreekumar in the case, saying their release will send a message to wrongdoers that a person can level allegations with impunity and get away with it.

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