New Delhi, Apr 29: The Supreme Court on Wednesday disposed of activist Teesta Setalvad’s application seeking release of her passport and said she may file a fresh plea as and when she fixes the itinerary to travel abroad.
Setalvad had sought the release of her passport that was deposited in a court as a bail condition in a matter of alleged fabrication of documents to frame innocent people in post-Godhra riot cases of 2002.
Her application came up for hearing before a bench of Justices Dipankar Datta, Satish Chandra Sharma and Alok Aradhe.
“Are you scheduled to go out anywhere soon? As soon as you (Setalvad) fix your itinerary, you let us know. We will not return the passport like this,” the bench told senior advocate Kapil Sibal, who was appearing for Setalvad.
“You have to tell us that you have to visit this country or that country. For travelling abroad, you want your passport back. For that, you need to make out a case,” the bench observed.
Sibal said Setalvad has to take permission from the court to travel abroad.
While disposing of the application, the bench said, “However, as and when the petitioner desires to travel abroad, she may file a fresh application.”
On April 13, the apex court had said that Setalvad’s application may be listed before a three-judge bench after obtaining an order from Chief Justice of India Surya Kant as the bail was granted by a three-judge bench.
Sibal had then argued that one of the conditions imposed for bail was that her passport would continue to be in the sessions court’s custody.
On July 19, 2023, the top court granted her regular bail in the case involving alleged fabrication of documents to frame innocent people in the post-Godhra riot cases, while terming the Gujarat High Court order denying her the relief “perverse” and “contradictory”.
Quashing the July 1, 2023 order of the high court, the three-judge bench had held that Setalvad’s custodial interrogation was not necessary since the chargesheet in the matter was filed and most of the evidence was documentary in nature.
It had directed that Setalvad’s passport, which she had already surrendered, would be in the custody of the sessions court and that she shall not make any attempt to influence the witnesses and stay away from them.
The apex court had noted that an FIR against Setalvad was lodged following a top court verdict of June 24, 2022 in the case of Zakia Jafri who had alleged a larger conspiracy behind the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat.
Jafri had challenged the high court’s October 5, 2017 order rejecting her petition against the findings of the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT).
Zakia Jafri was the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was among those killed in the Gulberg housing society during the communal riots.
Setalvad was arrested a day after the top court’s judgment in the Zakia Jafri case.
The FIR against Setalvad and two others, former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and former Gujarat DGP R B Sreekumar, followed the apex court’s observation that some people kept “the pot boiling” in the case “for ulterior designs” and “all those involved in such abuse of process need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with the law”
