The Supreme Court on Wednesday extended the interim protection from arrest granted to activist Teesta Setalvad till July 19 in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence in relation to the 2002 Gujarat riots, Live Law reported.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna and Dipankar Datta extended the stay on a Gujarat High Court order asking the activist to surrender immediately.
The extension was ordered after Additional Solicitor General SV Raju sought time for the translation of the documents, according to PTI.
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Setalvad, however, urged the bench to hear the matter urgently.
The court directed Setalvad as well as the Gujarat government to file any documents that they want to place on record before July 15. The interim order will remain in force till the next hearing, which is slated for July 19.
Justice Nirzar Desai of the Gujarat High Court on July 1 denied her regular bail, claiming that Setalvad had attempted to unsettle a democratically-elected government and tarnish the image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Hours later in a special late-night hearing, Justices Gavai, Bopanna and Datta stayed the High Court order for a week. The bench said that when the Supreme Court had granted the activist interim bail on September 2, it had noted that she was entitled to special protection as a woman under the provisions of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The court said that the Gujarat High Court should have granted at least some protection to Setalvad so that she had sufficient time to challenge the order.
Setalvad, along with former state Director General of Police RB Sreekumar and former Indian Police Service officer Sanjiv Bhatt, has been accused of fabricating evidence about the 2002 Gujarat riots with the objective of destabilising the state government.
More than 1,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed in the riots. Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat at the time.
Justice Desai in his order had claimed that the activist helped riot victims with the intention of gaining personal and political benefits by collecting huge funds and projecting herself as a social leader. She ultimately became a member of the Planning Commission, the court added.
In the aftermath of the Gujarat riots, Setalvad had founded the organisation Citizens for Justice and Peace to help victims of the violence get justice. The organisation assisted the victims in filing cases, arranged funds to pursue the matters in courts and offered protection to witnesses.
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