Ahmedabad

Gujarat high court today rejected the applications filed by controversial social activist Teesta Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and two of her NGOs seeking an order to defreeze bank accounts of the two organizations which were freezed during the investigation of alleged embezzlement of funds collected for Gujarat riot victims.

The court of Justice G R Udhwani today pronounced the order turning down the application seeking defreezing of the accounts and permission to operate them.

Accepting the points raised by the public prosecutor Mitesh Amin, the court in its order said that allowing the defreezing of the accounts would affect the ongoing probe.

The court had concluded hearing of arguments on defreezing of the Bank accounts of the two NGOs, Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and Sabrang Trust, which were frozen after the city crime branch initiated a probe against Setalvad on charges of embezzling funds to the tune of Rs 1.51 crore yesterday. Some former residents of Gulbarg Society, where a mob had burnt 69 people including former Congress MP Ehsan Jafari during 2002 riots, had alleged that she had collected funds to build a museum in the housing society but had not implemented the project. They had alleged that they had spent the money on personal expenses instead. Setalvad has dismissed the charges.

Setalvad’s counsel Mihir Desai yesterday argued before the court that the probe agency had not even issued notice to the holders before freezing the accounts. The banks should allow her, and her NGOs to operate their accounts, after signing an appropriate bond as it is done in other cases of such nature.

– DeshGujarat