A SESSIONS court in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district Thursday sentenced former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to 20 years in jail in a 1996 case relating to planting of drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer. In its 700-page order, the court, which convicted Bhatt Wednesday, said the former police officer misused his “office and power”.
This is the second conviction of Bhatt in a criminal case. He is already sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1990 Jamnagar custodial death case, a punishment upheld by the Gujarat High Court this January. The Palanpur court in Banaskantha ordered that the two jail terms will run consecutively, which means the 20-year sentence will start after the end of the life sentence.
Bhatt was held guilty of falsely implicating the Rajasthan lawyer in 1996 by claiming that police had seized drugs from his hotel room in Palanpur. Bhatt was serving as the Banaskantha Superintendent of Police at the time.
Pronouncing the quantum of sentence, the court of Additional Sessions Judge Jatin Natvarlal Thakkar sentenced Bhatt to 20 years rigorous imprisonment under sections 21(c) (punishment for contravention in relation to manufactured drugs and preparations where the contravention involves commercial quantity) and 27A (punishment for financing illicit traffic and harbouring offenders) under the NDPS Act. He was also fined Rs 2 lakh under the two provisions. He was also sentenced to five years and fined Rs 50,000 under the NDPS Act section 29 (abetment and criminal conspiracy to commit offence), six months of imprisonment under section 58 (1), and two years of imprisonment under section 58 (2) (vexatious entry, search, seizure and arrest).
Additionally, he was sentenced to one-year imprisonment under IPC provisions relating to criminal conspiracy. He was also held guilty under IPC sections 167 (public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), 204 (secrets or destroys any document), 343 (wrongful confinement), 465 (forgery), 471 (using forged document) read with IPC section 120B (criminal conspiracy). For each of these, he was sentenced to two years in jail. But the court said these terms will run concurrently, which means he will serve 20 years in jail.
Bhatt’s wife Shweta took to X to call the conviction “unlawful”.
“Which means, the 5.5 years spent as an under-trial in this case while the prosecution maliciously dragged the fabricated case on and on will not be counted towards the 20 years of imprisonment or the unlawful life imprisonment sentence…In fact, in a gross departure from legal principles, as per the judgement pronounced by additional sessions judge J N Thakkar, the 20 years of imprisonment are to start and counted after the completion of the life imprisonment sentence,” she posted on X.
While pronouncing the maximum punishment for Bhatt, the court noted that it took into account his past antecedent. The judge observed that “the accused seems to be used to making scandalous remarks against judges who tried the case” and that he has also been accused of delaying the judicial process, while taking adverse note of Bhatt exercising available legal remedies as many as 17 times before the Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court.
Bhatt was serving as Banaskantha SP in 1996 when the police arrested lawyer Sumer Singh Rajpurohit, a resident of Pali in Rajasthan, for alleged possession of 1.15 kg of opium at a hotel room in Palanpur. After Rajpurohit was arrested under the NDPS Act, an FIR was lodged by I B Vyas, an inspector at the time, against the lawyer. But later, Vyas in a report filed under CrPC Section 169 admitted that the person occupying the hotel room was not Rajpurohit.
After the lawyer was discharged by a court, he filed a complaint in a magistrate court in Rajasthan against Bhatt, Vyas, Gujarat High Court judge R R Jain and others. He alleged that he was falsely implicated at the judge’s behest over a disputed property.
After no major development for years, the Gujarat High Court in April 2018 ordered that an FIR, which accused Bhatt and others of falsely implicating the lawyer, be investigated by a Special Investigation Team (SIT).
Bhatt was arrested in the case in September 2018 and the SIT filed a chargesheet on November 2, 2018 before an NDPS court in Palanpur. Vyas was made an approver in the case in 2021, on account of which he was cleared of all charges on Thursday.
Incidentally, Bhatt faces more cases, including one of fabrication of evidence in relation to 2002 riots, in which he is a co-accused along with activist Teesta Setalvad and former DGP R B Sreekumar. He faced at least four private complaints of custodial torture filed before the Jamjodhpur First Class Judicial Magistrate, borne out of police detentions in the district in 1990 after communal clashes.
