Neither CJP nor Sabrang Trust has any debit/credit cards in their respective names. For logistical convenience, with the full knowledge and consent of the trustees and auditors of the two trusts, air and train tickets are frequently booked online (using the personal credit cards of Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand). It is only such expenses strictly related to the legitimate activities which are reimbursed by Sabrang Trust and CJP after due verification. Despite being fully aware of this fact, the Gujarat police have claimed, with obvious dubious motive, that a host of personal expenses, including hair-cuts, purchase of grocery, shoes, jewellery etc. have been paid for by the trusts.
Such expenses met out of public funds should “shock the conscience of the court”, claims the sur-rejoinder. If anything, it is the blatant lies on oath repeatedly indulged by the police that should stir the conscience of court.
CJP and Sabrang Trust emphatically and categorically deny the claim made in the affidavit in sur-rejoinder that cash withdrawals from the two trusts totalling Rs. 75,28,000 (over many years) have been siphoned off or pocketed by Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand. That this too is an entirely baseless allegation can be established through the accounts books and cash vouchers of both CJP and Sabrang Trust.
Similarly, the sur-rejoinder claims that funds from the bank accounts of CJP and Sabrang Trust running into lakhs have been transferred into fixed deposits in the “family personal names” of Teesta Setalvad and Javed Anand. CJP and Sabrang Trust challenge the Gujarat police to provide evidence of even a single rupee thus transferred from the bank accounts of either of the two trusts into fixed deposits in personal names. Instead, the Gujarat police, functioning in nexus with one family of the Gulberg society and a former employee of CJP cited as “witness” in the specious FIR, is functioning at the behest of the political bigwigs in the state who are seriously affected by the persistent struggle for justice aided by CJP.
On one hand, the sur-rejoinder rubbishes the contention that all the amounts paid by CJP and Sabrang Trust to Sabrang Communications and Publishing Pvt. Ltd. were towards shared-costs of repair and maintenance expenses of office space and office equipment and shared staff. On the other hand, the Gujarat police claims to have made the “discovery” that the registered offices of all the three organizations—Nirant, Juhu Tara Road, Juhu, Mumbai- 400049) are the same! The simple point that the issue of shared costs would simply not arise if the three organizations had three different and separate office space, office equipments and staff (both administrative and technical/project staff), has escaped the Gujarat police.
The sur-rejoinder reiterates that only Rs. 2.49 lakh was spent on Legal Aid expenses. We challenge the Gujarat police to provide proof of this totally bogus claim. CJP has spent over Rs. 2 crore (nearly hundred times the police claim) on Legal Aid to the victims-survivors of the state-sponsored Gujarat pogrom and this can easily be established through accounts books, voucher files and annually audited accounts. This deliberate underestimation is deliberate and meant to prejudice the public mind.