Sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt withdraws plea from SC in custodial death case

The custodial death case against Bhatt related to 1990 when he was the assistant superintendent of police in Jamnagar

The Supreme Court on Wednesday granted suspended Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt the permission to withdraw his plea filed for the suspension of sentence in a three-decade-old custodial death case, in which he was sentenced to life by a Gujarat court in 2019.

Supreme Court of India. (PTI File Photo)

As the matter pending in the top court since 2020 was taken up by a bench of justices MR Shah and BV Nagarathna, senior advocate Kapil Sibal appearing for Bhatt requested the court to allow him to unconditionally withdraw the plea as the high court was hearing the appeal filed by him, challenging his conviction, on a day-to-day basis.

The bench allowed the petitioner to withdraw. Sibal further requested the court to record in the order that the high court should decide the appeal on merits without being influenced by any observations made by the Supreme Court, which had on May 24, 2019 directed the trial court to complete the trial in the nearly 32-year-old case within four months. In that order, the SC had also accused Bhatt of delaying the trial. A review petition filed against this order was dismissed last month by the apex court.

Taking note of Sibal’s request, the top court said, “No clarification is required as any observation to be made by the high court is always confined to Section 389 [of the] CrPC (suspension of sentence pending appeal). The high court will decide the matter on its own merits in accordance with the law.”

The custodial death case against Bhatt related to 1990 when he was the assistant superintendent of police in Jamnagar. A communal riot broke out in the city following a bandh call ahead of senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani’s Rath Yatra. Among the 133 persons detained by the police, one of them was Prabhudas Vaishnani who subsequently died in hospital after his release. However, his brother alleged that Vaishnani was tortured by policemen in jail leading to his death.

Earlier, Bhatt approached the Gujarat high court for the suspension of sentence but it was rejected in September 2019. The HC also claimed that Bhatt had scant regard for courts, accusing him of misusing the process of law.

Bhatt was sacked in 2015 for “unauthorised absence” from service. He was earlier suspended after he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being complacent in controlling the 2002 Gujarat riots when he was the Gujarat chief minister, but failed to provide any evidence on this charge. His account was also found to be false by the special investigation team (SIT) that probed the Gujarat riots cases.

Following a judgment by the top court in June this year dismissing any larger conspiracy behind the riots, the Gujarat government registered a criminal case against Bhatt, social activist Teesta Setalvad and another police officer for allegedly fabricating evidence of conspiracy to implicate PM Modi among other persons in the 2002 riots case.