Sacked Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt moves SC against refusal to suspend life term sentence

The petitioner questioned validity of HC's order when it admitted his appeal for consideration but refused to suspend the sentence

Sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has approached the Supreme Court, challenging the Gujarat High Court's order, which declined to suspend his sentence of life term imposed by a Jamnagar court on June 20, 2019 in a 30-year-old custodial death case.

Bhatt is currently lodged at Palanpur jail. The officer, who had earlier filed an affidavit against Narendra Modi over his 'role' in 2002 Gujarat riots, claimed that the HC failed to appreciate that he had been persecuted by the state agencies from 2011, though they defended him since 1990.

A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, R Subhash Reddy and M R Shah is likely to take up Bhatt's petition on Monday filed through advocate Farrukh Rasheed.

The petitioner questioned validity of HC's order of September 25, 2019 when it admitted his appeal for consideration but refused to suspend the sentence. As an interim measure, during the pendency of his appeal, he said his liberty must be restored as his conviction has not been confirmed.

Bhatt contended that the High Court failed to see that the present incident related to death of Prabhudas Vaishnani happened 18 days after his release from police custody on November 18, 1990. Vaishnani, along with 133 accused, were arrested after violent incidents were reported in Jamnagar due to arrest of L K Advani in Bihar during his 'Rath Yatra'. Bhatt was given charge of Additional SP, Jamnagar.

"The HC ought to have appreciated that the trial court did not consider evidence of court witness P P Pandey, Investigating Officer, then SP, CID Crime, Ahmedabad, who recorded statement of different police officers, clearly indicating no beating or ill-treatment of the arrested accused," his plea claimed.

Due to ongoing "political vendetta", he claimed, those witnesses who negated the alleged incident, were dropped.

He also claimed that charges were framed against him without due sanction from the state government.