The Supreme Court on Monday permitted human rights activist Teesta Setalvad to travel to Amsterdam for the upcoming world premier of her documentary “CycleMahesh.”
Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal briefly submitted that Teesta’s passport needed to be released for 30 days for her to apply for a Schengen visa to travel to the Netherlands for 10 days from November 14-24, Live Law reported.
Teesta has received an invitation from the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam to attend the festival in her capacity as Producer of the documentary film “CycleMahesh” which will have its World Premiere in the Envision Competition of the Festival.
“I want to but I can’t object. I have experience of what she has done with one State and how things have happened,” said Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who appeared for Gujarat Government.
A bench of Justices B.R. Gavai and KV Viswanathan passed the order on the same conditions as stated in the August 2024 order, according to Live Law. In August, the same bench granted permission to visit Malaysia to attend an anti-racism conference subject to two conditions. First, an undertaking to be filed by her stating that Teesta will return after the aforesaid period. Second, a solvent security of Rs 10 lakh is also required. Apart from this, the passport shall be returned after the conference ends.
Last year, Teesta was granted regular bail in the Gujarat police case over the alleged fabrication of evidence in the 2002 Muslim genocide cases. A bench comprising Justices BR Gavai, AS Bopanna and Dipankar Datta quashed the Gujarat High Court’s order which denied her regular bail.
One of the conditions imposed for bail was that Setalvad’s passport would continue to be in the custody of the Sessions Court.
