An Ahmedabad court on Saturday rejected the bail plea of activist Teesta Setalvad and former Director General of Police R.B. Sreekumar, arrested for allegedly fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in 2002 Gujarat riots cases.
Additional principal judge D.D. Thakkar said releasing them on bail would “impliedly encourage to the wrongdoers that in spite of doing such type of accusations against the then CM and others, the court has lightly enlarged the accused on bail”.
The government had submitted an affidavit opposing the bail applications.
Both Setalvad and Sreekumar were arrested on June 25 on the basis of a First Information Report registered against them under Indian Penal Code sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence).
The arrest came a day after the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, wife of slain Congress MP Ahsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit by the special investigation team (SIT) to then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the riots case.
Earlier this month, an SIT report claimed that the duo, along with former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, were part of a larger conspiracy carried out at the behest of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel to destabilise then Gujarat government led by Modi.
Setalvad was paid Rs 30 lakh at Patel's behest soon after the the Godhra train burning incident of 2002, the SIT alleged.
On February 8, 2012, the SIT filed a closure report giving a clean chit to Modi and 63 others, including senior government officials, saying there was "no prosecutable evidence" against them.
