Gujarat court likely to pass order on bail pleas of Teesta Setalvad, Sreekumar

(Representative image)

A court in Ahmedabad is likely to pass an order on Thursday on the bail applications of activist Teesta Setalvad and former DGP R B Sreekuamr arrested for allegedly fabricating documents to frame innocent people in 2002 riots cases.

The two accused have denied allegations made against them by a Special Investigation Team (SIT), formed to conduct a probe into the case. On Tuesday, the court had deferred its order on the bail pleas till Thursday.

Setalvad, and former Indian Police Service (IPS) officers Sreekumar and Sanjiv Bhatt, were arrested by the Ahmedabad crime branch last month under sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence) of the Indian Penal Code.

The SIT had told the court that Setalvad and Sreekumar were part of a "larger conspiracy" carried out at the behest of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel to destabilise the then BJP government headed by chief minister Narendra Modi.

At Patel's behest, Setalvad had received Rs 30 lakh after post-Godhra riots in 2002, the SIT had alleged. The SIT had told the court that Sreekumar was a "disgruntled government officer" who "abused the process for damning the elected representatives, bureaucracy and police administration of the whole state of Gujarat for ulterior purposes".

The First Information Report (FIR) was registered against Setalvad, Sreekumar, and Bhatt after the Supreme Court last month dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri who was killed during the 2002 Gujarat riots.

Her plea had alleged a "larger conspiracy" behind the post-Godhra riots.

On February 8, 2012, the SIT filed a closure report giving a clean chit to now Prime Minister Modi and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was no prosecutable evidence against them. The top court on June 24 this year upheld the SIT's clean chit to Modi and 63 others.