Supreme Court Rejects Sanjiv Bhatt’s Plea to Suspend Sentence in 1996 Drug Seizure Case
Former IPS officer’s request for relief in decades-old drug planting case dismissed; Palanpur sessions court sentence stands.
New Delhi, Dec 11: The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea filed by former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking suspension of the 20-year jail sentence imposed on him in a 1996 drug seizure case.
A bench comprising Justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi said it was not inclined to entertain the matter. Bhatt had approached the top court after a sessions court in Palanpur, Banaskantha district, Gujarat, sentenced him to 20 years in prison for falsely implicating a Rajasthan-based lawyer in the case.
In 1996, police under Bhatt’s supervision had arrested Sumersingh Rajpurohit, claiming drugs were seized from a hotel room in Palanpur where the lawyer was staying. However, the Rajasthan police later stated that Rajpurohit was falsely implicated to coerce him into transferring a disputed property in Pali, Rajasthan.
Bhatt, who was sacked from service in 2015, was arrested by the Gujarat CID in September 2018 under the NDPS Act and has been in Palanpur sub-jail since. Last year, he had approached the Supreme Court seeking transfer of the trial to another sessions court, alleging bias, and requested directions for recording trial court proceedings.
The Supreme Court had dismissed Bhatt’s plea last year and imposed a cost of Rs 3 lakh for alleging bias against a lower court judge. With Thursday’s decision, Bhatt’s 20 year sentence in the decades-old drug planting case remains in force.
