New Supreme Court bench to hear Teesta Setalvad case

In a surprise development, a new bench of the Supreme Court will hear on Thursday the plea of social activist Teesta Setalvad and her husband seeking anticipatory bail in a case of alleged embezzlement of funds for a museum in Ahmedabad's Gulbarg Society that was devastated in the 2002 riots.

No reasons were given for the change in the bench. The case has been shifted from the bench of justices S J Mukhopadhya and N V Ramana, which had granted protection from arrest to the couple for six days on February 13, to a bench comprising Justices Dipak Mishra and Adarsh Kumar Goel.

The bench of Justices Mukhopadhaya and Ramana had said during the last hearing that the allegations against Setalvad and her husband were "grave" and it was not even a case for quashing the FIR".

It had even asked couple to "surrender and seek regular bail" as they have been accused of collecting funds in the names of riots victims and religion but later granted the relief.

There were a number of occasions during the 30-minute hearing when the previous bench put  questions to senior advocate Kapil Sibal and making it clear that the "allegations" against them were "grave" and warned against bringing "politics" in the matter.

The Bench had said it was not going to be moved by the names of persons and the matter would be treated like that of any ordinary citizen or individual.