New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt to withdraw his plea seeking suspension of life sentence against him by a Gujarat court in an over three-decade-old custodial death case.
As a bench of justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna took up the matter — which was pending in the Supreme Court since 2020 — senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for Bhatt, requested the court to allow him unconditionally withdraw the plea citing the Gujarat high court was already hearing an appeal filed by him challenging his conviction on a day-to-day basis.
The bench allowed the petitioner to withdraw the plea.
Sibal further appealed to the court to record in its order that the high court should decide the appeal on merits without being influenced by any previous observations made by the top court. The Supreme Court on May 24, 2019 had accused Bhatt of delaying the trial and directed the lower court in Gujarat to complete the trial in the 1990 custodial death case in four months. A review petition filed against this order was dismissed last month by the top court.
Taking note of Sibal’s request, the bench said: “No clarification is required as any observation to be made by the high court is always confined to Section 389 CrPC (suspension of sentence pending appeal). The high court will decide the matter on its merits in accordance with law.”
{{/usCountry}}Taking note of Sibal’s request, the bench said: “No clarification is required as any observation to be made by the high court is always confined to Section 389 CrPC (suspension of sentence pending appeal). The high court will decide the matter on its merits in accordance with law.”
{{/usCountry}}The custody death case dates back to 1990 when Bhatt was Jamnagar district’s newly appointed additional superintendent of police.
The police had detained many Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers protesting against the arrest of LK Advani after his Rath Yatra was stopped in Bihar due to communal violence. One of those detained, Prabhudas Vaishnani, died in a hospital after his release. His brother alleged that Vaishnani was tortured by policemen in jail that led to his death.
On June 20, 2019, a sessions court in Jamnagar convicted Bhatt and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Bhatt then approached the Gujarat high court for suspension of the sentence but it was rejected in September 2019. The high court also claimed that Bhatt had scant regard for courts and accused him of misusing the process of law.
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Bhatt, a1988 batch IPS officer of Gujarat cadre, was sacked in 2015 for “unauthorised absence” from service. He was earlier suspended after he accused then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi of being complacent in controlling the 2002 Gujarat riots but failed to provide any evidence on support his charge. His statement was also found to be false by the special investigation team (SIT), which probed the Gujarat riots cases.
Following a judgment by the Supreme Court in June this year dismissing any larger conspiracy behind riots, the Gujarat government registered a criminal case against Bhatt, social activist Teesta Setalvad and director general of police RB Sreekumar for allegedly fabricating documents to frame innocent people in 2002 Gujarat riots cases.