New Delhi: Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt acquitted 1997 Detention Center Torture Case A court in Porbandar, Gujarat, ruled that prosecutors failed to “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt”.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Mukesh Pandya, while delivering the verdict on Saturday, drew an inference of innocence against Bhat due to lack of evidence.
The case was filed under sections of the Criminal Procedure Code against Bhatt, who was the then Superintendent of Police (SP) of Porbandar. indian penal code (IPC) Relating to causing grievous hurt in order to obtain a plea.
Constable Vajubhai Chau was also charged, but the charges against him were reduced after his death.
The court noted that the prosecution was unable to prove that the complainant, Naran Jadav, was tortured to extract his confession.
It also stressed that the necessary sanctions to prosecute Butt, a civil servant who was performing his duties at the time, had not yet been obtained.
The case stems from an FIR registered on April 15, 2013, as per the court’s directions following Jadav’s complaint in 1997.
Jadhav, one of the accused in the 1994 weapons landing case, claimed that he and his son were given electric shocks on various parts of their bodies, including private parts, while in police custody. He claimed that on July 5, 1997, he was transferred from Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad to Bhatt’s residence in Porbandar, where he was tortured.
His complaint before the Judicial Magistrate triggered an investigation and subsequently a case was registered on December 31, 1998 and summons was issued to Bhatt and Chau.
The acquittal is the latest legal development for Butt, who is serving a life sentence that began in 1990. Death in custody cases Prabhudas Vaishnani was one of the 150 people detained during Jamjodhpur riots over the suspension of Rath Yatra by BJP leader LK Advani .
Bhatt was also convicted in a 1996 case of planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan lawyer and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in March 2024.
The former IPS officer also faces charges of falsifying evidence in connection with the 2002 incident gujarat riotsalongside activists Tista Setavade and former DGP of Gujarat RB Srikumar.
Bhatt, who was dismissed from the police in 2015 for “unauthorized absence from duty”, had approached the Gujarat High Court challenging his conviction in the 1990 case, but his appeal was dismissed in January 2024.
Bhatt made headlines in 2011 when he filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court accusing then-Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of involvement in the 2002 riots. However, these claims were rejected by the Special Investigation Team (SIT) tasked with probing the matter.
With this acquittal, Bhatt managed to escape one of several legal proceedings, but he remains incarcerated in the Rajkot Central Jail, serving a sentence for an earlier conviction.
(Based on input from each agency)
