NGO activist Teesta Setalvad, who found herself virtually on the wrong side of the law for writing about the Supreme Court proceedings in Gujarat riot cases to an international human rights body, was let off the hook by the top court on Thursday after she furnished an undertaking not to repeat the mistake in future.
A special bench monitoring the investigation and progress of the trials in major riot cases and had brought the judicial process back on the rails with handing over the probe to a special investigating team, though closed further proceedings against Setalvad but with a strong reprimand.
Ms Setalvad had sent copies of two letters she wrote to SIT chief R.K. Raghvan about protection of witnesses and sent its copies to the office of high commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva.
The top court bench of Justices D.K. Jain, P. Sathasivam and Aftab Alam scrutinised the contents of the two letters and said “they say so many things which is happening here. We don’t appreciate any letter being sent to a foreign country on the proceedings of this court. It shows that you have more confidence in this organisation and have no confidence in us.”
The exasperated bench asked Setalvad’s lawyer Kamini Jaiswal about the relevance of such a communication to a foreign body when the Supreme Court had taken special initiative to set up the SIT and get the riot cases investigated afresh and was having a close monitoring of the trial proceedings with issuing direction from time to time to the SIT and even considering every application filed by Ms Setalvad herself.
“Can they (OHCHR) give any advice to us? Will you send details of all the proceedings to them. If you had any problem, you could have straight away come to us. We don’t approve any organisation taking care of our proceedings and guiding us,” the top court said asking in what capacity the OHCHR could act in this matter.
“What powers does it have and what direction it can give. We take it as interference in our proceedings,” the bench said while asking Ms Jaiswal whether Ms Setavad, who was present in the court, was ready to make amends or should the court proceed ahead against her.