The Supreme Court has granted activist Teesta Setalvad an extension of interim protection from arrest until July 19 in connection with the 2002 post-Godhra riots case. A bench of Justices B R Gavai, A S Bopanna, and Dipankar Datta issued notice to the Gujarat government regarding Setalvad’s appeal against the Gujarat High Court order.
The bench stated, “Issue notice returnable on July 19, 2023. Whatever documents parties want to place on record shall be filed prior to July 15 after exchanging with each other. Interim order to continue until further orders.” The matter will be heard on July 19 after Additional Solicitor General S V Raju requested time for translation of documents.
Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, representing Setalvad, urged the bench to give the case urgent attention. On July 1, the apex court protected Setalvad from arrest and temporarily stayed the high court’s order, which had denied her regular bail and demanded her immediate surrender in a case of alleged evidence fabrication related to the post-Godhra riots. The Supreme Court questioned the denial of time for Setalvad to appeal against the high court’s decision, emphasizing that even an ordinary criminal is entitled to interim relief.
“In ordinary circumstances, we would not have considered such a request. However, it is to be noted that after the FIR was registered against the petitioner on June 25, 2022, and the petitioner was arrested,” the bench stated. “This court considering the application for grant of interim bail had granted the same on certain conditions, vide order dated September 2, 2022. One of the factors that weighed with this court was that the petitioner was a woman and as such entitled to special protection under Section 437 CrPC.”
The three-judge bench criticized the high court for not granting any protection to Setalvad, stating, “We find that, taking into consideration this fact, the single judge ought to have granted at least some protection so that the petitioner has sufficient time to challenge the order passed by the single judge before this court.” As a result, the top court stayed the impugned order for a week.
The matter was heard by a three-judge bench in a special sitting on July 1, following a disagreement on granting interim protection from arrest to Setalvad by a two-judge vacation bench earlier that day. Setalvad had urgently approached the apex court seeking protection from arrest, but the vacation bench could not reach a consensus and referred the matter to Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud. The Chief Justice promptly formed a bench of three judges to hear Setalvad’s petition challenging the high court order on the same day at 9:15 PM.
Previously, on July 1, Justice Nirzar Desai of the Gujarat High Court had directed Setalvad to surrender immediately. Setalvad had been released on interim bail from the Supreme Court in September of the previous year. The court had noted that Setalvad made attempts to destabilize a democratically elected government and tarnish the image of the then-chief minister and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking to send him to jail. Setalvad, along with former Gujarat Director General of Police R B Sreekumar and ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, was arrested in June the previous year for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame innocent individuals in post-Godhra riots cases.
In its judgment, the high court found that Setalvad had used her close associates and riot victims to file “false and fabricated
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