recording the evidence of witnesses. It said that the police had attempted to help the accused by not submitting names of the accused. Meanwhile, Zahira Sheikh, admitted lying in court and not testifying against the accused. She said she had been threatened by senior figures in the local organisation of Gujarat's ruling party, the Hindu right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. Thus 17 of the accused charged with murdering 14 people were retried in the case beginning in 2004. Perjury A serious dent to Best Bakery case key witness Zahira Sheikh's credibility, a Supreme Court-appointed committee has indicted her as a "self-condemned liar" falling to "inducements" by "certain persons" to give "inconsistent" statements during the trial of the case. A bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice H K Sema opened the sealed report and read out the three main conclusions of the committee headed by Supreme Court Registrar General B M Gupta. At the same time, the committee gave a clean chit to social activist Teesta Setalavad of the charges of inducement levelled against her by Zahira. On 10 January 2005, the court referred the matter for inquiry on being faced with the flip-flops of Zahira much to the embarrassment of her one time protector and social activist Setalavad. The bench, after glancing through the over 150-page report, said that the committee has come to the conclusion that there was inducement given to Zahira by certain persons and that there were inconsistencies in her statements. The court made it clear that it has not accepted the report and sought the opinion of the counsel for both Zahira and Setalavad in regard to 'acceptability' of the report. Allegation of false depositions Mother of prime witness in the Best Bakery case Zahira Sheikh, was on Thursday held guilty of contempt of court by the special court conducting the re-trial here. The court imposed a fine of Rs 100 on Sehrunnisa after reading her reply to a show-cause notice issued to her earlier in the day. Sehrunnisa was taken into custody after the trial court initiated contempt proceedings against her for her defiant attitude during her deposition as a witness. While tendering evidence, she frequently looked at Raes Khan, an NGO activist, who was sitting in the court. Even after the judge told her to address the court and not to look at others she continued to look at Raes. The judge warned her