Teesta Setalvad's bail plea posted before new bench after judge's recusal: Supreme Court Registry

In new twist to the controversy over a new Bench hearing Teesta Setalvad's anticipatory bail plea, the Supreme Court registry has said that Teesta's bail plea was posted befrore another bench on the recusal of a judge in the previous bench.

Referring to news reports that Chief Justice of India H L Dattu had transferred Setalvad’s plea to a bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra despite the fact that neither of the judges of the previous bench, justices S J Mukhopadhya and N V Ramana, had recused, an apex court registrar said it has “no basis or substance”.

The Registry however, declined to identify which of the two judges - Justice Mukhopadhyay or Justice Ramana -had sought recusal.

“Whatever has been done has been done at the direct recusal of one of the Hon’ble judges of the previous bench. Assigning a case to a bench is in the administrative domain of the Hon’ble Chief Justice of India,” M K Hanjura, Registrar of the Supreme Court said.

“Whatever has been reported has no basis and no substance,” he said, adding that media should not report “incorrect facts”.

The bench of justices S J Mukhopadhyaya and N V Ramana, on February 13, had extended interim protection by six more days against arrest to Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand in a case of alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum at Ahmedabad’s Gulbarg Society that was devastated in the 2002 riots. It had posed some tough queries to the couple.

However, the matter was later transferred to a new bench comprising justices Dipak Misra and Adarsh Kumar Goel which on February 19 restrained Gujarat police from arresting them and later reserved its verdict of their plea