New Delhi : Gujarat police has claimed before the Supreme Court that it has collected documentary evidence on social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband “siphoning off” Rs 3.85 crore for “personal use” from the Rs 9.75 crore donations received by their NGOs for the welfare of the 2002 riot victims.
In an 83-page affidavit, assistant commissioner of police Rahul B Patel detailed the non-cooperation by Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and their trusts, Centre for Justice and Peace (CJP) and Sabrang, in providing documents needed to investigate complaints by riots victims at Gulbarg Society that the couple did not deliver as per promise once the donations swelled.
After the Gujarat high court rejected the couple’s anticipatory bail plea , the SC had restrained police from arresting the two but asked them to furnish documents required by the police for investigation.
Apart from the SC, Setalvad and Anand had also moved the NHRC complaining that the Gujarat police had initiated the probe as a sinister campaign to harass and malign them. Setalvad had taken the lead in highlighting the plight of 2002 riot victims and had convinced the SC to se ..
The police alleged that the couple also drew money for their personal use from the Rs 1.40 crore grant given by the HRD ministry from February 2011 to July 2012. The police said it had knowledge of only three accounts of CJP and Sabrang Trust initially.
“As soon as these three accounts were seized on January 23, 2014, the couple immediately transferred Rs 24.5 lakh and Rs 11.5 lakh from the other two accounts of Sabrang Trust, unknown to the investigation authority, by way of demand drafts on a single day,” it said.
It accused the couple of concealing from the SC and high courts that “after seizure of the accounts by police, they opened two separate accounts of Sabrang Trust, namely Sabrang Trust General account and Sabrang Trust HRD account in another bank”.
“Prior to 2007, there was negligible receipt in the accounts of CJP and Sabrang Trust. It is only after the applicant-accused, through their websites, newsletters, interviews, CDs etc expressed an urgent need for funds to save and rehabilitate riot victims and set up a ‘Museum of Resistance’ that donations from all over the world started pouring into these accounts,” the police alleged.
It also attempted to prove wrong Setalvad’s claim that most riot-related cases were fought free of cost by top lawyers. “It is revealed that more than Rs 71.40 lakh was paid to different advocates as legal fees,” the police alleged.
Seeking custodial interrogation of the couple, the police said, “They have calculatingly misappropriated trusts’ huge funds and pocketed in their personal accounts.”
Source : The Economic Times
