On August 27, 2024, the supreme court asked the state of Gujarat to respond to the petition filed by Sanjiv Bhatt, a former IPS officer who is appealing his conviction in the case of custodial death from 1990, who was awarded life imprisonment for the same.
“Notice is returned returnable for four weeks,” said Justices Vikram Nath and Prasanna B Varale Bench Three. The appeal was further tagged along with other issues connected to the case.
Sanjiv Bhatt has moved the top court against the Gujarat High Court’s order of January 9, 2024 wherein his appeal was dismissed. The court had also confirmed the convictions of Bhatt and co-accused Pravinsinh Zala under sections 302 (murder), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (punishment for criminal intimidation) of Indian Penal Code.
The high court had turned down the state government’s plea to augment the sentences of five others who were convicted of the lesser offence of hurt (under section 323) and threatening (under section 506) and acquitted from the murder charge.
While Bhatt and Zala are already in jail the court cancelled the bail bonds of five other accused who are still free.
“We have also gone through what reasons are cited by the trial court while convicting the concerned accused on the charges which are punishable under 302 IPC,” the division bench stated while pronouncing the order.
“On the basis of the paramount evidence based on record, we consider that the trial court has rightly found (five) accused …guilty for the offences under the sections 323,” the judges had opined.
Sanjiv Bhatt and Zala both, being members of the police, stood convicted for murder as per the judgment delivered by the Sessions Court at Jamnagar on 20-06-2019.
On October 30, 1990, additional superintendent of police Bhatt had arrested almost 150 persons due to a communal riot in the Town Of Jamjodhpur, which took place after a ‘bandh’ was observed against the stopping of BJP leader L.K Advani’s “rath yatra” targeting the construction of Ram Temple at Ayodhya.
Prabhudas Vaishnani, who was among those detained, died of illness in a hospital after his release from custody.
According to Vaishnani’s brother, he was in Bhatt’s custody together with six other police officials who were accused of torturing and killing him while in custody.
Bhatt was taken into custody on September 5, 2018,in a different matter in regard to him making up false charges of drug possession against a man. This case is presently at the trial stage.
He is also an accused in a case of conspiracy to fabricate evidence along with Teesta Setalvad and former gujarat DGP R B Sreekumar regarding the 2002 Gujarat riots cases.
Sanjiv Bhatt had also hit the headlines when he filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court charging Modi as being responsible for the riots outburst as the Chief Minister in 2002, He was later accused that it was a political conspiracy against Modi and disproved by a special investigation team.
He was relieved of his duties in 2011 and was further expelled from his job by the ministry of home affairs in august 2015 on the grounds of unexplained absence.
In the custodial death case, the Jamnagar court sentenced the other five policemen — sub-inspectors Dipak Shah and Sailesh Pandya and constables Pravinsih Jadeja, Anopsinh Jethva and Keshubha Jadeja — to two years in prison.
