Teesta Setalvad Case | 'What Investigation Done In 24 Hours? What Was State Doing For 20 Yrs?' : Questions By Supreme Court To Gujarat Police

In a significant development, not only was social activist Teesta Setalvad’s bail application allowed by the Supreme Court on Wednesday, but a three-judge bench of Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna, and Dipankar Datta also asked a number of incisive and critical questions during the hearing. Right at the outset, Justice Gavai flagged that the order of the Gujarat High Court was ‘contradictory’ because the High Court, on the one hand, said that it cannot consider the question of whether a prima facie case at the stage of bail, but at the same time, it elaborately discussed the chargesheet evidence to “almost holds guilty. “The witness statements point towards the existence of an offence under Section 194 of the Indian Penal Code, and the judge has considered that,” Additional Solicitor-General SV Raju replied. She is deemed to have admitted because she did not seek to quash the FIR under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure?” Deprecating this reasoning, the top court pronounced: “Our limited understanding of law that the factors that should be considered at the stage of the grant of bail are prima facie case, the possibility of the accused tampering with evidence or influencing witnesses, and fleeing away from the ends of justice. “These statements were prepared by Teesta Setalvad, who wanted to implicate certain people.” Notably, the bench also raised concerns about the charges brought under Section 194 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 by reading it with the second explanation appended to Section 193 which states that an investigation directed by law preliminary to a proceeding before a court is a stage of a judicial proceeding, though that investigation may not take place before the court itself.