Earlier, Gujarat High Court had rejected her plea to extend bail in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence in relation to the 2002 Gujarat riots.. Till now, she was protected against coercive actions because of the Supreme Court’s interim bail order of September 2022.

She immediately approached the SC, but the two-member bench differed on granting interim protection to her. A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Prashant Kumar Mishra, after a brief hearing, said that they have differed in their decision and referred her case to the Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud to place it before a larger bench. CJI constituted a three-member bench.

Charges were framed against her under sections 468 (forgery for cheating) and 194 (fabricating false evidence with intent to procure conviction for capital offences) of the Indian Penal Code. Later on September 2, the Supreme Court granted interim bail to Teesta.

The SIT formed to probe the case has alleged that Setalvad and Sreekumar were part of a larger conspiracy carried out at the behest of late Congress leader Ahmed Patel to destabilise the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government led by Narendra Modi, who was the Chief Minister of Gujarat at the time. Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt is also an accused in the case.

The FIR against Setalvad, Sreekumar, and Bhatt was registered after the Supreme Court had on June 24, dismissed the plea filed by Zakia Jafri, widow of former Congress MP Ehsan Jafri, challenging the clean chit given by the SIT to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and several others in 2002 Gujarat riots.

Ehsan Jafri was among 69 people killed during the violence at Gulberg Society in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002. Zakia Jafri has challenged the SIT’s clean chit to 64 people including Narendra Modi who was the Gujarat Chief Minister during the riots in the State.

She had alleged a “larger conspiracy” behind the post-Godhra incident riots. However, the SIT in the apex court had opposed the plea of Jafri saying there is a sinister plot behind the complaint to probe the “larger conspiracy” behind the 2002 Gujarat riots and the original complaint by Jafri was directed by Teesta Setalvad, who levelled allegations just to keep the pot boiling.