Supreme Court extends interim bail to Teesta Setalvad and husband Javed Anand

NEW DELHI: A larger bench of the Supreme Court will now weigh whether activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand should be subject to custodial interrogation or released on anticipatory bail over allegations that funds of two NGOs run by them for people affected in the 2002 Gujarat riots were misused.

A two-judge bench of Justices Dipak Misra and Adarsh Kumar Goel referred the issue of whether the duo’s liberty should trump fair and effective probe to a larger bench and extended an earlier order restraining Gujarat police from arresting them for an indefinite period. “Liberty is a precious value in a civil society, the bench noted, but so is rule of law. No one is above the law.

However, the issue of whether the couple should be interrogated in custody for offences of criminal breach of trust, forgery and cheating was a seminal question,” the bench said. SC summed up the allegations levelled by one Ferozkhan Saeedkhan Pathan against the couple and wondered if they were enough to render their liberty comatose and not grant them anticipatory bail.

It directed that the issue be placed before Chief Justice of India HL Dattu to be referred to a larger bench. Pathan had alleged that the two trustees, along with others, had raised crores of rupees as donations from India and abroad by projecting the plight of the affected persons of Gulbarg Society.