A day after the Supreme Court passed an order giving her interim bail, activist Teesta Setalvad on Saturday late evening walked out of Sabarmati Central Jail after spending over two months in judicial custody.
She is facing charges of forging and tutoring witnesses for conviction in 2002 post-Godhra riots cases.
The relief to Setalvad came after the apex court's order on Friday which granted her temporary release from jail. She had moved Supreme Court during the pendency of her regular bail plea before the Gujarat High Court, which on August 3 had posted the hearing after six weeks. The Supreme Court bench led Chief Justice of India U U Lalit had questioned if such a timeline was normal in the court in bail matters.
Representing Gujarat government in the apex court, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta had vehemently opposed Setalvad's plea and had requested the bench not to make an "exception" as it would be a "bad precedent." Setalvad, who heads Citizen for Justice and Peace which helped 2002 riots survivors in their legal fight, was picked up by a team of Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad from her residence in Mumbai on June 25.
On the same day, Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) had filed an FIR against her, former DGP R B Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt for forgery, fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction of capital offence and government servant framing incorrect records, criminal conspiracy, among other charges. Days after filing of the FIR, Gujarat government formed a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the case.
The FIR was filed following a Supreme Court order on the petition of Zakia Jafri, wife of ex-Congress MP Ahsan Jafri, alleging then chief minister and 60 other state functionaries behind the riots as part of a larger conspiracy. While dismissing her petition, the apex court remarked against Setalvad, and others while stating, "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". A day later (June 25), an FIR was registered against Setalvad, Sreekumar and Bhatt.
Later, during her bail plea before the sessions court, SIT filed an affidavit opposing her bail. In the affidavit, the SIT claimed that she was involved in "larger conspiracy" and acted to "dismiss or destabilize" then Gujarat government "by hook or by crook" to implicate authorities including then chief minister Narendra Modi "at the behest of late Ahmed Patel, the-then member of Parliament from Rajya Sabha and political advisor to the president of Indian National Congress." SIT also accused her of having taken Rs 30 lakh from Patel as part of the "conspiracy."