Church leaders and human rights advocated in India applauded the Supreme Court’s decision to grant the petition to bail of activist Teesta Setalvad.
“With the relief to activist Teesta from the Supreme Court, our faith in the legal system is being gradually restored,” says Presentation Sister Dorothy Fernandes, national convener of the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace, an advocacy group.
Jesuit social scientist Father Cedric Prakash hails the verdict as “indeed a triumph of and for Truth and Justice.”
Food rights activist Irudhaya Jothi, another Jesuit, wants the same treatment in thousands of false cases pending in the Indian courts.
On July 19, Justices B R Gavai, AS Bopanna and Dipankar Datta of the apex court set aside the Gujarat High Court order rejecting Setalvad’s plea for regular bail in a case of alleged fabrication of documents to frame innocent people in the 2002 post-Godhra riot cases in the western Indian state.
The apex termed as “perverse” and “contradictory” the Gujarat High Court’s July 1 order denying Setalvad’s bail and asking her to “surrender immediately.”
The apex court, which had temporarily stayed the high court order, observed that the police filed the charge sheet against Setalvad, eliminating the necessity for custodial interrogation.
Father Jothi says he is happy to see a court with heart.
“If such a treatment was given to the 16 jailed in the Bhima Koregaon case, Jesuit Father Stan Swamy would have survived the custodial death,” says the Jesuit, who works in the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram.
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