NEW DELHI: At the end of an 11-hour drama in constitutional courts, the Supreme Court late Saturday night in a special sitting of a three-judge bench stayed for a week a Gujarat high court order rejecting bail to activist Teesta Setalvad and asking her to surrender immediately.

The case is related to alleged forgery of documents, tutoring of witnesses and influencing the system to malign the state and its functionaries in the country and abroad.This means she does not have to surrender and will not be taken into custody on the basis of the HC order.The bench said SC had granted interim bail in September as the petitioner was a woman and HC was "totally wrong" in not giving her even a week's protection.Earlier, a two-judge bench of the SC was split on grant of interim relief till the detailed hearing on her appeal, causing the 3-judge bench to be set up.'HC wrong in not granting relief when Teesta on SC bail for last 10 months' A single-judge bench of the HC, in a judgment running into more than 100 pages, refused her bail around 11am and directed her to surrender, rejecting her request for a 30-day suspension of the judgment to enable her to appeal in SC.

After a two-judge bench was split on granting intrim relief, CJI DY Chandrachud constituted a three-judge bench comprising Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna and Dipankar Datta.

After hearing Setalvad's counsel CU Singh and solicitor general Tushar Mehta, the bench stayed the HC order mainly on the ground that the SC had granted her interim bail last year because she was a woman and that the HC erred in not granting her time even for a week to appeal against its order in the SC.At the end of a 35-minute hearing, the bench said, "The HC was totally wrong in not granting even a week's protection, especially when there was interim protection granted by the SC for the last 10 months." The bench ordered the registry to place the matter before the CJI for assigning it to a regular bench next week."We are not going into the merits of the order.

In ordinary circumstances we would not have considered a request for stay of surrender.

SC had considered grant of interim bail and granted the same on certain conditions.

The single judge ought to have granted some protection to enable the petitioner sufficient time to challenge the HC order in SC," the bench said.When Mehta recounted the manner in which Setalvad had attempted to vilify the state and the country both within and outside through an evil design and in a motivated manner, Justice Datta said, "Her conduct may be reprehensible.

But can liberty, which she enjoyed for 10 months, not be extended for a few days?"Earlier a bench of Justices A S Oka and Prashant K Mishra had heard Setalvad's special leave petition on a court holiday and differed whether interim protection was to be granted.

While Justice Oka was in favour of bail, Mishra was against it."What happened between 2002 and the SC's June 24, 2022 judgment finding her alleged complicity in fabricating documents and tutoring witnesses to take every institution for a ride and malign the state government.

It was not an investigation by Gujarat police.

It was conducted by a SIT constituted by the SC," the SG said.Mehta said the SC had said the SIT has alleged she was the leader of the malicious scheme to "keep the pot boiling for ulterior design" and that all such persons needed to be prosecuted for abuse of process.

"If the SC finds that she deserved bail after hearing her plea later, it can always release her.

What is in question now is the rule of law and the majesty of the courts," the SG said.02:07‘Surrender immediately’: Massive setback for activist Teesta Setalvad as Gujarat HC rejects bail plea