Another reminder of the primacy of bail

Jail is not the norm, SC reiterates in Teesta case

The Supreme Court has again underlined the basic principle in criminal jurisprudence that bail, not jail, is the norm, by granting bail to activist Teesta Setalvad in a case related to alleged fabrication of evidence in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots. Setalvad has been targeted by the Gujarat police obviously for her position on the 2002 riots and her efforts to secure justice for the victims. She was arrested on June 25, 2022, and an Ahmedabad sessions court rejected her bail application on July 30. She moved the Supreme Court after the Gujarat High Court refused to consider her bail plea. The apex court has now found the High Court’s order ‘perverse’ and ‘’contradictory’’ and the action of the police unnecessary and unreasonable. While granting interim bail to Setalvad in the past, the Supreme Court had made some adverse observations about the Gujarat High Court and the state police. It had then also observed that Setalvad was not accused of any heinous crime that warranted her custodial investigation.

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It observed that there was no need to hold Setalvad in judicial custody as the case mainly depended on documentary evidence, which was part of the chargesheet filed in the case. In any case, the police had subjected her to custodial interrogation when she was in police remand for a week after her arrest in June last year. She was then granted interim bail and was not called for any further investigation or questioning after that. The court found no need to send her to jail on the basis of the police claim about forgery and fabrication when the trial was all set to begin in a sessions court. The case was registered against her the day after a Supreme Court bench remarked in riot victim Zakia Jafri’s case last year that those who had sought to malign the state government and its functionaries should be put in the dock. The court has now asked the police how they could investigate the case in one day and arrest Setalvad.

The Supreme Court has also made adverse comments on the order of the Gujarat High Court which refused bail to Setalvad. There is no possibility of Setalvad running away from justice or influencing witnesses or tampering with evidence and there was no reason to deny her bail. The court has done well to reiterate the established norms about bail. It is unfortunate that it has had to do it again and again.