SC allows activist Teesta Setalvad to travel to Amsterdam for film festival

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday permitted activist Teesta Setalvad to travel between November 14 and November 24 to attend the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.

Setalvad had received an invitation from the organisers to attend the festival in her capacity as producer of the documentary film Cycle Mahesh.

A bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan allowed the plea filed by Setalvad.

The apex court had in July, 2023, 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, said she had filed an application seeking permission to travel abroad as the apex court had in July, 2023, directed for her passport to be in the custody of the sessions court.

"My documentary has been awarded in Amsterdam. I (Setalvad) am seeking your lordships permission to go to Amsterdam from November 14 to November 24," he informed the bench.

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Gujarat government, did not object to the application.

The bench said the same conditions, as the ones imposed in August, would apply on Setalvad when her plea to travel to Malaysia was allowed.

The top court had on August 20 allowed Setalvad to travel to Malaysia for a conference while directing for her passport to 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 she will have to furnish a solvent surety of Rs 10 lakh to the sessions court's satisfaction.

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

On July 19, 2023, the apex court quashed the July 1 order of the Gujarat High Court, which had denied 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 communal riots and challenged the high court's October 5, 2017 order rejecting her petition against the finding of the Supreme Court-appointed special investigation team.

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 R B 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".