The Supreme Court on Thursday (11th December) rejected a plea filed by tainted former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking the suspension of his 20-year sentence in the 1996 Drug Planting case.
Bhatt’s plea came up for hearing before a bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi. Appearing for Bhatt, senior advocate Kapil Sibal argued before the court that Bhatt had undergone about 7 years and three months of a 3-month sentence. However, the bench said that it was not inclined to entertain the plea.
Justice Maheshwari pointed out the high quantity of drugs (5kg) involved in the case against Bhatt. Sibal countered by saying that the allegation of the prosecution could not be proved and that the conviction was for the possession of 1.015 kg of opium, which is not a commercial quantity as per the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.
Opposing Bhatt’s pleas, Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the state, countered Sibal’s arguments with facts. “He was a DSP in a particular district. He gets into a conspiracy that he will finance the procurement of opium, put it in a guest house…he gives his constable money to get opium…final recovery was 1.015, but I will show 4 other kgs…commercial quantity for opium derivative is 250 gms. The seized quantity is over 1 kg! That’s why 20 years,” Singh asserted.
Last year, Bhatt moved the Apex Court, requesting the transfer of his trial in the drug case to another sessions court, alleging bias. However, the Supreme Court dismissed his plea and imposed a cost of 3 lakh on him for wrongly accusing the lower court judge of bias while conducting his trial in the drug planting case.
What is the case involving Bhatt
Disgraced ex-IPS Sanjiv Bhatt was convicted in March 2024 by a sessions court in Palanpur town of Gujarat’s Banaskantha district in the 1996 drug planting case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. His conviction came 28 years after he framed a Rajasthan-based lawyer, Sumersingh Rajpurohit, in a drug case in 1996. Bhatt was the District Superintendent of Police in Banaskantha at that time. In a gross misuse of his authority, Bhatt fabricated evidence against a lawyer by placing 1.5 kg of opium in a hotel in Palanpur. The Gujarat CID arrested him, and an investigation by the Rajasthan Police later revealed that Rajpurohit was innocent, and the Banaskantha Police had deliberately framed him.
Bhatt is also serving a life sentence in a case related to custodial death. In 2019, Bhatt was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Jamnagar court in a 1989 custodial death case. Bhatt was posted as the ASP in Jamnagar when he detained over a hundred people during a communal riot, and one of them, named Prabhudas Vaishnani, died in custody due to injuries inflicted upon him. In 2015, he was sacked from the service.