Former Teesta Setalvad aide earns court ire for false evidence

GANDHINAGAR - A special fast track court Friday not only rejected the plea of Rais Khan, one time aide of social activist Teesta Setalvad, to become witness in the 2002 Naroda Gam massacre case of Ahmedabad but ordered proceedings against him for falsification of evidence.

Additional sessions judge S.H. Vora while rejecting the plea noted, “The applicant is involved in fabricating false evidence with intention to attract capital punishment, or imprisonment for life or for seven years upwards to the accused in the case.”

The court further noted, “The applicant and other persons have made an attempt through affidavits as true declaration knowing fully well that the same are false.”

Khan approached the court claiming that he was falsely implicated by eye-witnesses in their depositions before it for filing false affidavits before the Supreme Court.

He had claimed that the false affidavits of those witnesses and many other victims of the 2002 riot cases were prepared at the behest of Teesta Setalvad, secretary of a Mumbai based NGO, Citizens for Justice and Peace, with a view to get the trial shifted outside Gujarat. He requested the court to summon him as a witness under provisions of Code of Criminal Procedure to prove that the witnesses had falsely implicated him and had lied before the court.

However, the court rejected his plea and ordered registrar of city civil court to initiate proceedings against him under sections 193 to 196 and section 200 of the IPC. All these sections pertain to intentionally giving false evidence and invite prison terms of upto seven years, if found guilty. The court also ordered him to furnish a bond Rs.5,000 to ensure his presence in the case.