Charges of trying to destabilize Gujarat govt, taking money baseless: Teesta Setalvad to Court

Ahmedabad, July 18: Social activist Teesta Setalvad, accused by an SIT of conspiring to destabilize the then-elected government in Gujarat and taking money from late Congress leader Ahmed Patel, told a local court on Monday that these charges and others levelled against her were baseless.

The Mumbai-based activist, who is in jail in Gujarat, also denied charges of fabricating evidence to implicate innocent people in the 2002 riots cases.

During the hearing on her bail application, Setalvad argued that the slew of allegations levelled by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Gujarat police, including taking money from late Congress leader Patel, were baseless.

Another accused in the case, former Director General of Police (DGP) RB Sreekumar, also denied allegations before the court of Sessions Judge DD Thakkar and said his statements made before an inquiry commission have immunity from criminal prosecution.

The court kept the date for next hearing on July 20 when the prosecution will begin its argument.

The Special Investigation Team probing the case, in its affidavit before the court last week, had accused Setalvad of conspiring with Sreekumar and former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt for "dismissal or destabilisation of the elected government in Gujarat by hook or by crook." Setalvad, along with Sreekumar and Bhatt, was arrested by the Ahmedabad Crime Branch last month for allegedly fabricating evidence to implicate innocent persons in the 2002 riots cases.

They have been booked under IPC sections 468 (forgery) and 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence), among others.

Opposing her bail plea, the SIT said in the affidavit that the conspiracy was carried out at the behest of the late Patel and that Setalvad received Rs 30 lakh after the 2002 riots on the behest of the senior Congress leader.

Setalvad used to meet the leaders of a "prominent national party in power at that time in New Delhi to implicate names of senior leaders of the BJP government in riot cases", the SIT further claimed in the affidavit.

Last month, the Supreme Court had dismissed a plea filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband and former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed during the riots.

The plea had alleged a "larger conspiracy" behind the 2002 post-Godhra riots in Gujarat. But the apex court upheld a previous SIT's clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi (the then-chief minister of Gujarat) and 63 others.

The apex court had said there is no "title of material" to support the allegation that violence which broke out after the Godhra train burning incident was a "pre-planned event" owing to a conspiracy hatched at the highest level in the state.

Ehsan Jafri was among the 68 people killed at Ahmedabad's Gulberg Society during violence on February 28, 2002, a day after 59 people died when the Sabarmati Express train was set afire near Godhra station.

The statewide riots triggered in the aftermath of the train burning incident had killed 1,044 people.

The Union government had informed the Rajya Sabha in May 2005 that 254 Hindus and 790 Muslims were killed in the post-Godhra riots.