New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday granted interim bail to activist Teesta Setalvad in a case where she was arrested for allegedly fabricating documents to frame innocent people in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases, ANI reported.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and justices S Ravindra Bhat and Sudhanshu Dhulia asked Setalvad to surrender her passport to the trial court till the time the Gujarat High Court decides her regular bail plea.

The top court ordered Setalvad to render complete cooperation in the pending investigation. The activist was arrested on 25 June.

The case

The affidavit of the Gujarat government has stated that the FIR against Setalvad for falsifying evidence related to the riots, is not solely based on a top court judgment but is backed by evidence. Systematic efforts were made to ensure that both oral and other evidence is fabricated, the affidavit stated, ANI reported.

Setalvad has approached the top court against the 3 August order of the Gujarat High Court which issued notice to the Special Investigation Team (SIT) seeking its response to bail applications filed by Setalvad and former Gujarat Director General of Police (DGP) RB Sreekumar and posted the hearing on 19 September.

Setalvad and Sreekumar had approached the High Court after their bail applications were rejected by the Ahmedabad city sessions court.

On 30 July, the Ahmedabad sessions court refused to grant bail to Setalvad and Sreekumar while noting that the accused appeared to have aimed to “destabilise” the Gujarat government and defame the state for their ulterior motives.

They were arrested by the Ahmedabad Police Crime Branch on 25 June on the basis of a First Information Report (FIR) registered against them under sections 468 (forgery for cheating) and 194 (fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offences) of the Indian Penal Code.

The SIT formed to probe the case has alleged that Setalvad and Sreekumar were part of a larger conspiracy carried out at the behest of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel to destabilise the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Narendra Modi who was the chief minister of Gujarat at the time.

Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt is also an accused in the case.

With inputs from agencies

The original piece may be read here