The Gujarat high court on Wednesday granted interim bail to retired director general of police RB Sreekumar who was arrested on charges of fabricating evidence to frame innocent people in connection with the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat.
Former Indian Police Service officer Sanjiv Bhatt and activist Teest Setalvad are also accused in this case.
While granting interim bail to Sreekumar on Wednesday, the high court said that it will hear his petition for regular bail along with Setalvad’s plea on November 15.
Setalvad, arrested in the last week of June, was released on interim bail following a September 2 order of the Supreme Court. Bhatt is in a jail in Palanpur where he is serving life sentence in a custodial death case.
An FIR was lodged against Setalvad, Sreekumar, and Bhatt on June 25, a day after the Supreme Court dismissed a petition filed by Zakia Jafri, whose husband Ehsan Jafri was killed in the riots, alleging a larger conspiracy and challenging the clean chit given by the SIT to then Gujarat chief minister Modi and others in the 2002 post-Godhra riots cases.
The apex court expressed the need to proceed against those “disgruntled officers” and others whose “coalesced effort was to create a sensation by making false revelations”.
{{/usCountry}}The apex court expressed the need to proceed against those “disgruntled officers” and others whose “coalesced effort was to create a sensation by making false revelations”.
{{/usCountry}}Recently, a special investigation team (SIT) filed a charge sheet against activist Setalvad, Sreekumar and Bhatt in the case.
The accused have been charged under sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 194 (giving or fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offence) and 218 (public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture) of the Indian Penal Code.
According to the charge sheet, Setalvad carried out a larger conspiracy after the 2002 Gujarat riots at the behest of veteran Congress leader and former political adviser to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, the late Ahmed Patel, to destabilise the elected state government under the leadership of then chief minister Narendra Modi. Several meetings took place between the three accused, it added.