The Supreme Court on a rare late night hearing on Saturday granted protection to Teesta Setalvad against the immediate surrender orders of the Gujarat High Court. She was granted interim reliefs by the SC by putting a stay to the High Court order for a week. Activist Teesta’s bail application was rejected before the Gujarat High Court hours before the SC sat for the urgent hearing at 9:30 pm. Teesta, who is currently on bail, is accused of fabricating evidence and tutoring witnesses linked to the Gujarat Riots cases of 2002.
After a previous two-judge panel was unable to reach consensus, Setalvad’s case was considered by a three-judge bench consisting up of Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna, and Dipankar Datta in a special late-night hearing.
Setalvad was freed from Gujarat’s Sabarmati prison after the Supreme Court granted her interim relief in September 2022. She had applied to the Gujarat High Court for regular bail; however, the request was denied on Saturday. So far, Setalvad has been released on temporary bail protection by the Supreme Court.
Gujarat High Court rejected the bail application earlier on the same day
In its 127-page judgement, the Gujarat High Court stated, “Prima facie, this Court is of the opinion that extending Setalvad on bail will deepen and widen the communal polarization.”
Among other things, the High Court stated that Setalvad used the victims of the Godhra riots as a stepping stone to a Padma Shri award and to destroy the reputation of then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi in an attempt to destabilize his government.
“If any leniency is shown towards (Setalvad), there is a strong possibility that in the future, many more people will come out openly to help any entity in fulfilling their agenda in an illegal and unlawful manner, and show willingness to do anything by playing with the sentiments of the community just to ensure that (a) particular political party gets a sufficient swing in their favour, by changing people’s mindset by exploiting their religious and communal feelings,” said Justice Desai while rejecting the bail application.
Observations of the Supreme Court
According to Mr. C U Singh, Setalvad’s lawyer, “the Gujarat high court refused to stay the operation of the order for 30 days, but no reasons were given to explain the rejection in its order, and immediate surrender was ordered.”
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Gujarat government, asked the court to treat Setalvad the same as any regular citizen.
At this point, the bench stated, “A person has been on bail for the last ten months under the orders of this court.” What is the rush if a person is not given even seven days to challenge the order? Are skies about to fall? We don’t comprehend the high court’s attitude. “What is the alarming urgency?”
“Without considering anything on merits of the matter, finding that the learned single judge was not correct in (not) granting even some protection, we grant stay of the impugned order passed by the high court for a period of one week from today,” the SC said.
