Teesta Setalvad may be made respondent

The Bombay high court will decide whether activist Teesta Setalvad is to be made a respondent in a petition filed by Yasmeen Shaikh, a key prosecution witness in the 2002 Best Bakery case and sister-in-law of Zaheera Shaikh.

A division bench of justices PV Hardas and MN Gilani was hearing a petition filed by Yasmeen seeking re-recording of her evidence. In her petition, she alleged that she was “misguided and lured” to falsely depose against 17 accused by Setalvad. Nine were convicted for life by the sessions court in February 2006.

Yasmeen was the only prosecution witness from the Shaikh family who supported the police’s case against the accused while the rest, including Zaheera, turned hostile, alleging that Setalvad forced them to lie. The court later tried and convicted Zaheera and others who had turned hostile for perjury.

Fourteen people who took refuge in the bakery, owned by the Shaikh’s in Vadodara, were killed on March 1, 2002, in the aftermath of the Godhra riots. Yasmeen moved the high court after no action was taken on her letter dated June 17, 2010, addressed to the chief justice of the high court.

The judges on Friday said that Yasmeen can withdraw her petition and file a fresh petition joining all the accused/convicts as respondents.

When informed that Setalvad has not been made a respondent, justice Hardas said that the court will look into that issue later and posted Yasmeen’s petition for hearing on June 24.