New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday modified the condition it had imposed on controversial NGO operator Teesta Setalvad while granting her permission to travel to Malaysia from August 31 to September 10 for a conference.

Earlier, on August 20, the apex court had allowed Setalvad to travel to Selangor, Malaysia, for 11 days. As part of the permission, she was required to submit an undertaking stating that she would return to India as scheduled and continue to face trial. Additionally, she was to furnish solvent surety of Rs 10 lakh to the satisfaction of the sessions court in Ahmedabad.

On Thursday, Setalvad’s counsel brought the matter before a bench led by Justice B R Gavai, comprising Justices P K Mishra and K V Viswanathan, requesting a modification of the surety condition, citing that it would take a long time to fulfill.

Noting that Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj, representing the Gujarat government, had no objections to the modification, the bench in its order said, “We, therefore, modify the condition mentioned in paragraph no. 6 of the said order (of August 20) and the same be replaced as follows: The applicant (Setalvad) shall furnish solvent surety, cash surety, or surety in the nature of a fixed deposit receipt in the sum of Rs 10,00,000 to the satisfaction of the sessions court, Bhadra, Ahmedabad.”

In July last year, the Supreme Court had granted Setalvad regular bail in a case involving the alleged fabrication of documents to falsely implicate individuals in the 2002 post-Godhra riot cases.

Setalvad was arrested a day after the Supreme Court’s judgment in the Zakia Jafri case. The FIR also named former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and former DGP R B Sreekumar, following the Supreme Court’s remarks that some individuals had kept the case “alive” for ulterior motives and needed to be held accountable under the law. DeshGujarat