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
