Time to stop vindictive acts

The arrest of civil rights activist and Padma Shri recipient Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat Police officer Sreekumar, is deeply disturbing for those concerned with the rule of law and prevalence of justice and fairplay in the public life of the nation.

The arrest coming in the wake of the Supreme Court giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, raises several questions. First among these is : Should the Anti-terrorism Squad of the Gujarat Government arrest a civil rights activist whose public life is known to be dedicated, in her own words, to ‘puncturing the culture of impunity’?

Far from being linked to anything even remotely to do with terrorism, Teesta heading the NGO Citizens for Justice and Peace, has been in the forefront of the fight against suppression of civil liberties. The FIR filed against her alleges criminal conspiracy, forgery and placing false evidence in the court to frame innocent people” in the 2002 Gujarat riots case.

Vindictiveness of action is plainly evident as arrests were ordered the day after the Supreme Court dismissed the protest petition of Zakia Jafri, wife of former Congress MP Ahsan Jafri who was killed by a riotous mob on February 28, 2002 in the infamous Gulberg Society attack.

Mrs Jafri had challenged the clean chit given by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Police to Mr Narendra Modi in the Gujarat riot cases. The apex court’s three-judge bench headed by Mr. Justice A. M. Khanwilkar had ruled that it found no fault in the SIT report. Teesta and her NGO were co-petitioners in the case with Zakia Jafri.

The arrest betrays highhandedness of the authorities as the Supreme Court did not ask for any arrest in the matter, nor did it identify any person. As a rule, the apex court directs the authorities to make arrest only in cases when contempt of court has been committed.

However, it did observe that “It appears to us that a coalesced effort of the disgruntled officials of the state of Gujarat along with others was to create a sensation by making revelations which were false to their own knowledge. The falsity of their claim had been fully exposed by the SIT after a thorough investigation”.

It had further observed that “all those involved in the process of questioning the integrity of every functionary involved in such abuse of process, need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance of the law for keeping the pot boiling.”

Among the three who had charged the Gujarat Government of criminal culpability were Sanjiv Bhatt (who is already in prison in connection with another case), former Home Minister of Gujarat Haren Pandya and senior Police Officer R.B. Sreekumar who has been arrested along with Teesta Setalvad on June 26.

The arrests seem to be action emanating from the intention to inflict state reprisal for pursuing justice for the victims of the Gujarat riots and to hold the then functionaries accountable. The National Human Rights Commission had condemned the Gujarat Government for its failure to deliver justice. The Human Rights Watch report in 2002 had pointed out that the Gujarat authorities failed to take measures to end the violence and interfered in investigations. It will therefore be in the fitness of things that civil rights activists such as Teesta are ordered to be released immediately.