A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district on Thursday sentenced former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to 20 years of jail in a case of alleged drug planting dating back to 1996.
The court had, on Wednesday, held Bhatt guilty of falsely implicating a Rajasthan-based lawyer by claiming that in 1996 police had seized drugs from a hotel room in Palanpur where the lawyer was staying.
Bhatt, who is already in jail for a custodial death case, was sacked from the Indian Police Service in 2015. He was then serving as the superintendent of police of Banaskantha district.
The district police under him had arrested Rajasthan lawyer Sumersingh Rajpurohit under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act) in 1996, claiming they had seized drugs from a hotel room in Palanpur where he was staying.
However, the Rajasthan police later said Rajpurohit was falsely implicated by the Banaskantha police to compel him to transfer a disputed property located at Pali in Rajasthan.
Former police inspector IB Vyas had moved the Gujarat High Court in 1999 demanding a thorough inquiry into the case.
10 facts about Sanjiv Bhatt
- A former IPS officer of the Gujarat-cadre, 60-year-old Sanjiv Bhatt is known for his role in filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court of India against the then Chief Minister of Gujarat, Narendra Modi, concerning Modi’s alleged role in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
- In 2015, Bhatt was removed from the police service for “unauthorised absence”.
- In October 2015, the Supreme Court quashed Bhatt’s plea for constituting a special investigation team (SIT) for cases filed against him by Gujarat government. The court also lifted a stay on his trial in these cases and asked him to face prosecution.
- Bhatt belongs to a Kashmiri Pandit family and has a master’s degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is married to Shweta Bhatt.
- In 1990, as the Additional Superintendent of Police, he detained 150 people to control a riot in Jamnagar district.
- Prabhudas Vaishnani, one of the detainees, died of kidney failure a few days later, after being hospitalised. His brother lodged an FIR against Bhatt and six other policemen, alleging that he had been tortured in police custody. Another man, Vijaysinh Bhatti, alleged that he had been beaten up by Bhatt. He was accused in another custodial torture case in 1998.
- From December 1999 to September 2002, he worked as Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence in the State Intelligence Bureau at Gandhinagar. He was responsible for looking after the state’s internal security, border and coastal security, and security of vital installations.
- In 2003, Bhatt was posted as the superintendent of Sabarmati Central Jail. There, he became very popular among the prisoners. He introduced desserts like gajar ka halwa on the jail menu. He also posted undertrials in the Godhra train burning case on a jail committee. Two months after his appointment, he was transferred for being too friendly with the prisoners and bestowing favours upon them.
- In November 2012, Bhatt and six other policemen were charged with murder in the 1990 custodial death case of Prabhudas Vaishnani. On 20 June 2019, he was sentenced to life in the case.
(With inputs from PTI, agencies)
Comments
0 comment