Activist Teesta Setalvad's Interim Bail Extended By Supreme Court Till July 19

The Supreme Court today extended the interim bail granted to activist Teesta Setalvad till the next hearing on July 19.

The court is hearing the activist's petition against the Gujarat High Court order that asked her to surrender in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence to frame innocents in 2002 post-Godhra riots cases. The high court had rejected her plea for regular bail.

Earlier, on July 1, the Supreme Court had protected her from arrest and put the high court order on hold for now.

The three-judge bench hearing the matter late on Saturday night had questioned why the activist was denied time to challenge against the high court order.

"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 lady and as such entitled to special protection under Section 437 CrPC," the bench had noted.

"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.

"In that view of the matter, without considering anything on merits of the matter, finding that the single judge was not correct in granting even some protection, we grant a stay of the impugned order passed by the high court for a period of one week from today," it had said.

Ms Setalvad was arrested in June last year along along with former Gujarat police chief R B Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in an offence registered by Ahmedabad crime branch for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame "innocent people" in the post-Godhra riots cases.

The high court had said in its judgment that prima facie, she used her close associates and riot victims to file "false and fabricated affidavits before the Supreme Court with a view to unseat the establishment and to tarnish the image of establishment and the then chief minister".

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was Gujarat Chief Minister at the time.

Ms Setalvad was arrested just two days after the court dismissed a plea by her and Zakia Jafri - whose husband Ehsan Jafri, a former MP, was killed in the riots - in which they had challenged a probe that cleared Prime Minister Modi, then Chief Minister, of any wrongdoing.

The activist was released from jail in September last year after she got interim bail from the Supreme Court.