In this case, for the second time, the Supreme Court has intervened to grant A welcome relief for activist Teesta Setalvadwho is being tried on charges related to his role in helping the victims of the Gujarat riots get justice. The court has extended its interim stay till July 19. He was denied regular bail on a Gujarat High Court judgment and was directed to surrender immediately. At first glance, it may appear that the court was unusually lenient when it set up a bench on the same day to hear her plea against the High Court order, and two judges differed on granting interim protection from arrest Thereafter a large bench was constituted. , However, the circumstances are equally unusual and indicate an attempt to keep him in prison for as long as possible. The present case arose from the observations of a bench of the Court, which virtually called for her arrest and prosecution for “stirring the pot” – Ms. Setalvad’s calls for victims like Zakia Jafri to seek justice for the killings during the 2002 genocide reference to help. The police lost no time in registering an FIR against her and former IPS officers RB Sreekumar and Sanjeev Bhatt, accusing them of fabricating evidence and coaching witnesses to depose, including prominent functionaries of the Gujarat government, including the then chief The alleged conspiracy to trap was shown. Minister Narendra Modi.
In September last year, after unusually adjourning his bail hearing in the high court from August 3 to September 19, 2022, the court had granted him interim bail. By then she had spent more than two months in jail, and was interrogated in custody. , Since the charge sheet has been filed and the accused has spent considerable time in custody, it was a good case to grant bail on merits. The court had asked the High Court to independently decide his regular bail application. The high court refused her bail citing the “seriousness of the offence” and the material against her and rejected the request to suspend the order for the time being. It is even said that giving him bail will increase communal polarization. A Supreme Court judge found it strange that a person who had been out of jail for nine months was not given even a few days’ time to surrender. As the Supreme Court has said earlier, protection of personal liberty must be ensured at least for a limited period to enable citizens to pursue their legal remedies. Prosecutorial zeal alone should not determine who is free and who is in jail.