JOIN USGodhra Riots: Setalvad, Sreekumar, lodged at Sabarmati jail, move bail pleas
Mumbai-based activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat Director General of Police (DGP), R B Sreekumar, lodged at Sabarmati Central Jail for allegedly fabricating evidence and tutoring witnesses in 2002 riots cases for seeking a conviction, have filed bail applications before a sessions court on Tuesday. The pleas are likely to be heard later this week.
Setalvad has moved the plea through lawyer Somnath Vatsa while advocate SM Vohra will be representing Sreekumar. On Saturday, both were sent to jail in judicial custody after their five days of police remand ended.
In his bail plea, Sreekumar has argued that no case is made out against him. He has said that even assuming that section-218 of the Indian Penal Code is applicable, it is a non-cognizable offence. Section-218 of IPC deals with "public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save a person from punishment or property from forfeiture."
He also argued that section-194 of IPC (Giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of capital offence) won't apply to him as he had recorded his statements or affidavits before the Nanavati Commission, which doesn't have power to penalise. Similarly, Setalvad has argued that there is no evidence against her to prove that she was involved in fabricating evidence or tutoring witnesses.
Sreekumar was arrested on June 25 from his residence in Gandhinagar while a team of Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) picked up Setalvad from her Mumbai residence on June 26.
Following their arrests, the Gujarat government formed Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the case against them. Former IPS officer and currently in Palanpur jail Sanjiv Bhatt is the third named accused in the FIR registered with Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) based on observations made by the Supreme Court on June 24.
The apex court while dismissing Zakia Jafri's appeal petition challenging clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others from the 2002 riots, remarked, "those who had kept the pot boiling" with an "ulterior motive" for the past 16 years should be in the dock and be "proceeded with in accordance with the law". Zakia is the widow of ex-Congress MP Ahsan Jafri who was killed in the Gulberg Society massacre in the riots.
Barely 24 hours after passing of this judgement, the DCB filed the FIR against Setalvad, Sreekumar and Bhatt for alleged "forgery, fabricating false evidence and criminal conspiracy" to seek conviction in 2002 post-Godhra riot cases.