NEW DELHI/MUMBAI/AHMEDABAD: The Supreme Court has restrained police from arresting social activist Teesta Setalvad till Friday.

A bench headed by CJI HL Dattu passed the order after senior advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that the Gujarat police is hell bent on arresting her.

He said that police reached Teesta's home in Mumbai after the Gujarat HC turned down her anticipatory bail plea.

The apex court then granted her and her husband Javed Anand protection till Friday.

The apex court will hear Setalvad's anticipatory bail plea on Friday.

Interestingly, Sibal mentioned the case in middle of court proceedings, saying that it is an extraordinary situation and mighty force of Gujarat police is after her.

Clearing the path for police to arrest social activist Teesta Setalvad, the Gujarat high court on Thursday rejected her anticipatory bail plea in a criminal case of misappropriation of trust funds collected on behalf of riot victims.

Justice Pardiwala said that since the accused were not co-operating properly in the investigation and because it prima facie appears that the funds were used for private purpose, the accused persons cannot be armoured with full-fledged anticipatory bail.

According to officials, a police team led by a sub-inspector reached Teesta Setalvad's residence in Juhu on Thursday afternoon. But both Teesta and her husband Javed Anand were not present there.

Teesta had left her security behind at her bungalow. Police suspect that Teesta Seetlvad is in Delhi. She had left her home at 8am today.

The special public prosecutor for Gujarat government, Mahesh Jethmalani, who successfully argued to have Teesta's plea rejected, told TOI after the order against her, "it's a tragedy that persons who make it their mission to work for the rights of victims in society themselves try and take advantage of the funds that have been collected on their behalf."

Teesta's lawyers refused to divulge her exact location soon after the court rejected her pre-arrest bail plea.

The HC had earlier granted Teesta interim protection against arrest which it vacated on Thursday. The Bombay high court had earlier said it lacked the territorial jurisdiction to hear her plea when she first moved the HC in Mumbai last year. Teesta and her husband Javed Anand had moved the Bombay HC to quash the FIR in the misappropriation case against them. The Bombay HC had asked them to approach the court in Gujarat.

The Gujarat police filed a detailed 80-page reply last July to oppose Teesta's pre-arrest bail plea. The thrust of their argument is that she has used trust funds and monies collected by her NGO for personal use. Earlier while opposing her plea in the Bombay HC the Gujarat police said she "embezzled funds" collected in the name of the 2002 Godhra riot victims. Setalvad refuted the allegations and said she was being falsely and ''dishonestly'' implicated.

Setalvad and Anand had challenged before the Bombay HC an FIR filed against them by the Gujarat police last year.

Earlier the HC had asked her to file for anticipatory bail before a Gujarat sessions court which she did. The FIR against Teesta and Javed said that both the accused in the guise of collecting funds in the name of their NGO Sabrang Trust to set up a museum for victims of the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat at the site of Gulbarga housing society had allegedly misappropriated the funds and cheated the complainant. The FIR also invoked Section 72A of the Information Technology Act for disclosure in breach of lawful contract.

Teesta had earlier rebutted the police reply and said, "the state of Gujarat was spreading lies about Citizen for Justice and Peace cheating victims of the riots."

She had filed a rejoinder to respond to each "baseless and malicious allegation" of the state and she said a former employee of the Organisation who had filed the complaint was being used as a proxy.

Some former residents of the society alleged that Setalvad and her NGOs restrained them from disposing of their properties after the riots by promising them the NGOs would purchase them and turn them into a riot memorial.

However, the properties were never purchased on the ground that there was not enough fund. Later, the NGOs and the office bearers of the society told them that they could sell their houses. They have alleged that Setalvad and her NGOs gathered money from across the world by showing their condition and upon promise that the funds were meant for their upliftment.

On 28 February, 2002, following the Godhra carnage, sixty-nine persons including former MP Ehsan Jafri were killed by an unruly mob at Gulbarg Society.

Read this in Hindi: अग्रिम जमानत याचिका खारिज, अरेस्ट हो सकती हैं सीतलवाड़

