SC permits activist Teesta Setalvad to travel to Malaysia for conference

New Delhi, Aug 20 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Tuesday permitted activist Teesta Setalvad to travel to Malaysia from August 31 to September 10 for a conference and asked her to file an undertaking that she will return to India as scheduled.

The apex court had in July last year granted her regular bail in a case of alleged fabrication of documents to frame innocent people in the 2002 post-Godhra riot cases.

During the hearing on Tuesday, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Setalvad, told a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan that she has filed an application seeking permission to travel abroad as the apex court had in July last year said that her passport shall continue to be in the custody of the sessions court.

“I (Setalvad) am seeking your lordships permission to go to Malaysia for an anti-racism conference from August 31 to September 10,” he told the bench.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Gujarat government, said she should be asked to file an undertaking before the court.

The bench noted Mehta’s submission that it was necessary that certain conditions should be imposed on her so that her return is ensured to face the trial.

While permitting Setalvad to travel to Malaysia, the bench said her passport be returned to her.

“The petitioner (Setalvad) shall file an undertaking before this court that she will return to India as scheduled and face the trial,” the bench said, adding that she shall also furnish a solvent surety of Rs 10 lakh to the satisfaction of the sessions court.

On her return from Malaysia, Setalvad shall re-surrender her passport with the trial judge, the court said.

ed bail to Setalvad in the case.

It had said that Setalvad’s passport, which she had already surrendered, shall continue to be in the custody of the sessions court, and she would not make any attempt to influence the witnesses and stay away from them.

The top court had noted the submissions of Setalvad’s counsel that the FIR against her was lodged following a judgment by the apex court on June 24, 2022 in the case of Zakia Jafri, who had alleged a larger conspiracy behind the 2002 com

Jafri is the widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, who was among those killed at the Gulberg Housing Society during the communal riots.

Setalvad was arrested a day after the apex court’s judgment in the Zakia Jafri case.

The FIR against Setalvad and two others – former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and former DGP RB Sreekumar – followed the apex court’s observation that some people kept “the pot boiling” of the case “for ulterior design” and “all those involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with the law”.