The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its judgement on the bail plea of activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand, who are facing charges of alleged embezzlement of funds she had raised for two NGOs working for victims of the 2002 Gujarat riots, saying they cannot be arrested by Gujarat police.
Setalvad and her husband have been booked by the Crime Branch of Gujarat police on charges of cheating, breach of trust and under the IT Act, in a matter relating to the construction of Museum of Resistance in the Gulbarg society in Ahmedabad which was hit by communal riot in 2002.
On February 28, 2002, in the aftermath of the Godhra train burning incident, armed rioters had swooped on the Gulbarg society and killed 69 people, including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri.
While observing that it was not a case fit for custodial questioning, the two-judge bench of justice Dipak Mishra and justice Adarsh Kumar Goel said she will have to furnish all documents required by the police and cooperate with them. ?The SC said details of documents to be given will be mentioned in its detailed verdict.
The court, however, added that if Teesta does not cooperate in the probe, Gujarat police can file an application for the cancellation of their bails.
The SC also observed that money diverted from a trust account for personal use could be an auditing error and does not warrant custodial questioning.
The case was shifted from the bench of justice SJ Mukhopadhya and justice NV Ramana, which had granted the couple protection from arrest for six days on February 13, to a bench comprising justice Mishra and justice Goel. No reasons were given for the change in the bench.
The bench of justice Mukhopadhaya and justice Ramana had said during the last hearing that the allegations against Setalvad and Ahmed were "grave" and it was not even a case for quashing the FIR.
It had even asked couple to "surrender and seek regular bail" as they have been accused of collecting funds in the names of riots victims and religion but later granted the relief.
There were a number of occasions during the 30-minute hearing when the previous bench put questions to Setalvad's lawyer and Congress leader Kapil Sibal and making it clear that the "allegations" against them were "grave" and warned against bringing "politics" in the matter.
The bench refused to get bogged by political statements being made in the court by Sibal and observed: "We will look into the allegations in the FIR mainly. Let it be very clear, we will be looking at the case not by names but like the case of any ordinary individual."
The Gujarat government had registered the case against Setalvad last year. Her anticipatory bail plea and that of her husband was earlier rejected by the Gujarat high court, prompting them to appeal to the apex court the same day for fear of being arrested.
(With PTI inputs)
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