Mumbai-based activist Teesta Setalvad's former associate Rais Khan Pathan has demanded Contempt of Court proceedings against Setalvad for the remarks she made about the judiciary at a seminar abroad.
In a letter to the Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team (SIT) chairman RK Raghavan, Pathan has pointed out that Setalvad has alleged at a workshop in Bangkok that the Indian judiciary is turning a blind eye to the repeated occurrences of communal riots in India.
Pathan reminded the SIT chief that the apex court had already taken serious note of Setalvad writing to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) at Geneva in January 2011.
Following assurances from Setalvad that no such acts would be repeated, the three-judge bench of the Supreme Court had closed the issue, Pathan's letter to the SIT chief Raghavan recalled.
But, despite the assurance to the apex court about not raising the issues of human rights at foreign fora, Setalvad presented a paper at a workshop in Bangkok in which she has once again made allegations against India's judiciary, Pathan informed the SIT chief.
Quoting the excerpts from Setalvad's paper presented at the workshop on National, Racial or Religious Hatred - Asia-Pacific held at Bangkok on July 6-7, 2011, Pathan said that the text of her paper conveys the feeling that India's judiciary has failed to punish the guilty and judiciary has no courage to punish the hate speech mongers.
"Despite being petitioner in various writ petitions and Special leave Petitions in the High Courts and the Supreme Court to seek justice, her criticism against the Indian judiciary including the apex court, that too on foreign soil, shows that she has no faith in judicial system of the country", Rais Khan Pathan wrote to the SIT chief urging him to launch Contempt of Court proceedings against Setalvad.