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The court today sentenced former IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt to 20 years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 2 lakh in the 1996 NDPS case of Palanpur. After this Sanjeev Bhatt was taken to Palanpur sub jail in police custody. The Second Additional Sessions Court had on Wednesday convicted former IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt in the NDPS case. Bhatt’s lawyer SB Thakor said that his client will challenge the decision in the High Court.
Sanjeev Bhatt’s wife Shweta Bhatt was also present during his sentencing on Thursday. After the sentence was announced, he raised questions against the decision. He said that we were not given a chance for a fair trial. The person who took reward for catching drugs was made an approver and allegations were leveled against us. The judge of this court has not been transferred for 4.5 years. We raised all the issues, but our views were not heard. We were nowhere in this case. This is completely wrong.
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Lawyer implicated in false case of possessing opium
In 1996, Sanjeev Bhatt had falsely implicated a lawyer from Rajasthan in possession of opium. Actually, the police had raided a hotel in Palanpur, where lawyer Sumersingh Rajpurohit was staying. Sanjeev Bhatt had claimed to have recovered opium from his room. At that time Bhatt was the Superintendent of Police of Banaskantha.
A case was filed for eviction of the shop
The then Superintendent of Police Sanjeev Bhatt (now dismissed) had made a false case of opium against Pali-based lawyer Sumersingh Rajpurohit to vacate a shop in Pali. In this case, the victim advocate Sumersingh was wrongly arrested. Then he was released after vacating the shop in Pali. Since then its investigation was pending. Bhatt was dismissed from the force in 2015 and has been behind bars since 2018.
CID Crime investigated on the instructions of the High Court
In the year 2018, Gujarat High Court ruled in this case who brought the opium? Where did you get it from and who took it to the hotel? CID Kaim Gujarat was ordered to investigate this. On the basis of this SIT was formed. The case was investigated by the SIT, after which Sanjeev Bhatt and the then L.C.B. Police Inspector and now retired DSP IB Vyas was arrested.
The charge sheet in the case was filed in the Namdar court within the time limit of three months. Accused Sanjeev Bhatt is in jail since his arrest. Then in 2019, charges were framed against the accused in Namdar court. During this time, several petitions and applications were filed in the trial court by accused Sanjeev Bhatt in the above judicial process.
Retired Deputy SP had become a government witness in the case
In respect of those petitions made in the Gujarat High Court and the Supreme Court, necessary affidavits were submitted in the Namdar Court in coordination with the Investigating Officer and the Special Public Prosecutor and those applications were rejected. Then the accused in this case, retired Deputy SP RB Vyas, agreed to become a government witness, due to which the court pardoned him and allowed him to become a witness in the case.
Thus, at the end of the thorough investigation and trial conducted by the Special Public Prosecutors against accused Sanjeev Bhatt under sections 21 (C), 27 (A), 29, 58 (1), 58 (2) of the NDPS Act and Indian Penal Code, His charges were proved under sections 116, 167, 204, 343, 465, 471, 120(B). On the basis of this, the reputed court declared him guilty yesterday.
Sanjeev Bhatt is serving life imprisonment in another case.
Let us tell you that before this, Bhatt was also sentenced to life imprisonment in the Jamnagar custodial death case. In the 1990 custodial death case, former IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt and another police officer Praveen Singh Zala were found guilty by the Jamnagar district court and sentenced to life imprisonment. The court had convicted Praveen Singh Jhala and Bhatt under section 302 of the IPC. A case was registered against eight policemen in this case.
Other guilty policemen were convicted by the court under sections 323 and 506 of the IPC. This matter is of the year 1990. At that time Sanjeev Bhatt was posted as Additional Superintendent of Police in Jamnagar. They detained 150 people during the communal riots in Jamjodhpur during the Rath Yatra taken out by senior BJP leader Lal Krishna Advani. One of these people, Prabhudas Vaishnani, died in the hospital after being released due to alleged torture.
Narendra Modi’s name came into discussion during Gujarat riots.
He came into limelight in April 2011 when he accused the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi of involvement in the 2002 Gujarat riots. He had also filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court regarding this.
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