[4] In a public discussion at the Press club in March 2017, Teesta recounted that despite coming from a family steeped in a legal heritage, she decided to pursue a career in journalism after reading a book that her father had bought her called "All the President's men".

[5] She subsequently went to college, studied law for two years, dropped out and then graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Bombay University in 1983 and started work as a journalist.

[5] According to Javed Anand (Setalvad's husband and co-founder of Communalism Combat), the decision to break from mainstream journalism to start a magazine was because it was also a platform which gave them an opportunity to intervene in ways which they couldn't have otherwise.

[9] Setalvad and her husband, along with others such as Father Cedric Prakash (a catholic priest), Anil Dharker (a journalist), Alyque Padamsee, Javed Akhtar, Vijay Tendulkar and Rahul Bose (all film & theatre personalities) set up an NGO named "Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP)" on 1 April 2002.

[10] The NGO forthwith began to litigate in various courts against the alleged complicity of the Chief Minister and government of Gujarat state in the riots that had broken out shortly before.

She has also authored the chapter When Guardians Betray:The Role of the Police in the book Gujarat:The making of a tragedy, edited by Siddharth Varadarajan and published by Penguin.

[15] Teesta Setalvad's former aide Rais Khan Pathan has filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court alleging manipulation of evidence, which were in the form of statements of witnesses, by her in five sensitive post-Godhra riot cases.

The SIT which is headed by former CBI director, R K Raghavan has said that false witnesses were tutored to give evidence about imaginary incidents by Teesta Setalvad and other NGOs.

[18] The report which was brought to the notice of the bench consisting of Justices Arijit Pasayat, P Sathasivam and Aftab Alam, noted that the much publicised case of a pregnant Muslim woman Kausar Bano being gangraped by a mob and foetus being removed with sharp weapons, was also fabricated, and false.

The bail application stated that "The FIR is a mala fide action of the Crime Branch, Ahmedabad, to intimidate a human rights defender.

This is the fifth time that a false criminal case has been lodged since 2004 because of me and my organization's consistent legal support to the victims of 2002 riots ... Gulbarga cooperative housing society had been totally burnt down by politically motivated anti-social elements and 68 people had lost their lives in the massacre."

[35] On finding that the Crime Branch, Ahmedabad instead of acting on his complaint had filed an FIR against Setalvad and others, the Secretary of the Gulbarg Housing Society, Firoz Gulzar Pathan moved the court complaining against Gujarat police's biased approach.

This led the magisterial court on 15 February 2014 to direct the city crime branch to lodge an FIR and start investigation against former residents of Gulbarg Society who had made the complaint against Setalvad last year.

[34] On 28 November 2014, local court rejected pleas filed by activist Teesta Setalvad, her husband Javed Anand and their two NGOs seeking to de-freeze their bank accounts attached earlier by police in connection with the embezzlement case.

[46] The criminal conspiracy complaint alleges that in a meeting of senior police officers and officials convened by the then Chief minister Mr Modi on 27 February 2002 following the Godhra tragedy, he issued his "let Hindus give vent to their anger" directive.

On 5 May 2011, during a hearing in the Supreme Court, Shanti Bhushan, the counsel for Zakia Jafri, alleged that SIT was a doing cover-up job and sought copies of the investigation reports.

The amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran informed the court that he had received a copy of an affidavit filed by Sanjiv Bhatt that he was present at a 27 February 2002 meeting convened by the chief minister where instructions were given to teach Muslims a lesson.

[53] The amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran submitted his final report[54] where he found sufficient evidence to make Mr Modi stand trial.

[58] The trial court on 10 April 2012 observed that SIT had not found any evidence for the prosecution of Modi or any of the top bureaucrats or police officials and had recommended that the investigation be closed.

Their lawyer further submitted that the so-called incident of Chief Minister (Narendra Modi) giving instructions (in the meeting) to high-level police officers not to take action against the rioters is a sole creation of Teesta Setalvad.

[78][79][80][81] In a signed article in Outlook magazine, published in March 2015, Indira Jaising wrote that Teesta's organization Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) did creditable work in obtaining convictions for 119 people (including a Minister) for participating in the Gujarat riots.

The financial dealings of Teesta and CJP can be probed, but the disproportionality of the legal process, the timing, and the insistence of the prosecution on custodial interrogation, smack of vendetta.