Bhatt was in 2019 sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Jamnagar, Gujarat over a case of alleged custodial killings in November 1990.

Team Clarion

NEW DELHI — The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned to next week the petition filed by former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to suspend his life sentence in a three-decade-old custodial death case to January 27, Live Law reported.

The matter has been now listed for 27th January by the three member bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, MR Shah and R Subhash Reddy after Bhatt’s counsel Advocate-on-Record Farrukh Rasheed requested for adjournment.

Rasheed told the Court that the Senior Counsel who was to argue the matter, was indisposed.

Bhatt was in 2019 sentenced to life imprisonment by a sessions court in Jamnagar, Gujarat over a case of alleged custodial killings in November 1990..

Some activists, however, say Bhatt’s sentencing is a case of retribution by the government for being vocal over the alleged complicity of the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 anti-Muslim pogrom.

Bhatt is currently lodged in Palanpur Jail.

According to reports, several human rights activists and organisations from India and abroad had on Monday requested the Supreme Court to grant bail to Bhatt.

At a virtual press conference organised by the Indian American Muslim Council and Hindus for Human Rights, they had said Bhatt’s conviction in the case was wrong and based on fraudulent evidence.