Bhatt made headlines in 2011 after filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court, alleging that then-Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was complicit in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the state
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI – Former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt was on Saturday acquitted in a 27-year-old custodial torture case (1997) as the prosecution could not “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.”
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Mukesh Pandya acquitted Bhatt, the then superintendent of police (SP) of Porbandar, in the case of the custodial torture of a notorious history-sheeter.
A case was registered against Bhatt under the IPC sections for causing grievous hurt to obtain confession and other provisions by giving him the benefit of the doubt due to lack of evidence
Bhatt made headlines in 2011 after filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court, alleging that then-Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi was complicit in the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in the state. However, these claims were rejected by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) assigned to probe the matter.
Bhatt was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1990 custodial death case in Jamnagar and 20 years in jail in a 1996 case relating to planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer in Palanpur. He is currently lodged in the Rajkot Central Jail.
In its Saturday ruling the court held that the prosecution could not “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt” that the complainant was forced to confess to the crime and made to surrender by voluntarily causing pain using dangerous weapons and threats.
It also noted that the sanction required to prosecute the accused, who was then a public servant discharging his duty, had not been obtained in the case.
Bhatt and constable Vajubhai Chau, against whom the case was abated after his death, were charged under Sections 330 (causing hurt to extort confession) and 324 (causing hurt with dangerous weapons) of the Indian Penal Code on the complaint by one Naran Jadav for causing him physical and mental torture in police custody to extract confession in a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and Arms Act case.
A first information report was filed against Bhatt and Chau in a Porbandar city B-division police station on April 15, 2013, following the court’s direction on Jadav’s complaint before a magistrate court on July 6, 1997.
Jadav, one of the accused in the 1994 arms landing case, claimed he and his son were subjected to electric shocks on various parts of their bodies, including private areas, while in police custody. He alleged that on 5 July 1997, he was transferred from Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad to Bhatt’s residence in Porbandar, where the torture occurred.
Bhatt, who was dismissed from police service in 2015 for “un “unauthorised absence”, had challenged his conviction in the 1990 case before the Gujarat High Court but his appeal was dismissed in January 2024. – With inputs from Agencies
