The Supreme Court on Thursday extended the interim bail of social activists Teesta Setalvad and her husband Javed Anand till March 18, but asked them to cooperate in the probe in two criminal cases of alleged embezzlement of funds and the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) lodged against them by the Gujarat Police and the CBI, respectively.
The CBI and the state police told a Bench that Teesta was not cooperating with the investigation and the couple was also not supplying relevant documents relating to the spending of funds.
While the Gujarat police is probing the alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum at Ahmedabad’s Gulbarg Society that was devastated in the 2002 riots, the CBI is investigating the purported violations of the FCRA in connection with the utilisation of funds received from the Ford Foundation by Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt Ltd, run by the couple.
The submissions of Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar and advocate Mahesh Jethmalani on behalf of the CBI and the police, respectively, was refuted by advocate Kapil Sibal and Kamini Jaiswal, who said the allegation of non-cooperation was being made against Teesta and Anand as the probe was not suiting the investigators.