Teesta, Sreekumar bail plea: Court reserves orders for next week

Setalvad and Sreekumar were arrested last month by the Ahmedabad Detection of Crime Branch while former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt was arrested earlier this month for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame innocent persons in the 2002 riots cases.

While opposing the bail pleas of Setalvad and Sreekumar, the prosecution so far has largely indicated at the “larger conspiracy” that was allegedly orchestrated by Setalvad and the two co-accused with the motive “to destabilise the government”, and the prosecution has ascribed that Setalvad did this in order to “become a Rajya Sabha member and other monetary gains”.

The prosecution has broadly canvassed arguments on Setalvad’s past conduct.

Meanwhile, rebutting the prosecution’s argument on her conduct, advocate Somnath Vatsa, representing Setalvad, argued Thursday that Setalvad choosing to “exercise her legal right” cannot be used to draw “adverse comment”, and also argued that so far ingredients of IPC section 192 (fabricating false evidence) is not made out and without ingredients of key offences, the prosecution cannot stress on the offence of “a larger conspiracy”.

Vatsa also added that while there is no doubt that investigation has to be fair, at the same time “it cannot mean pre-trial incarceration.

Sreekumar’s advocate S M Vora as well as Vatsa, both argued Thursday on the past conduct and precedents  of one of the said witness cited by the prosecution, that the defence suspects is Raiskhan Pathan, now a Central Waqf Council member, who was associated with Setalvad and her NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, as a field coordinator in Ahmedabad.

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Highlighting his contentious conduct in the past, including a trial court conducting the Naroda Patiya riots case charging Pathan for fabricating evidence along with Setalvad, it was pointed out by Vora that Pathan is a disgruntled ex-employee of CJP and in his latest statements as witness has named only dead people like deceased Congress MP Ahmed Patel and father of Gujarat minister and BJP MLA late Haren Pandya, Vithalbhai Pandya.

It was also Vora’s case that Sreekumar retired in April 2007 and incidents cited by the investigators in the present case of Sreekumar allegedly pressuring witnesses to work with Setalvad, occurred in 2010.