Crime

Supreme Court of India rejects ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s wife’s plea challenging ‘drug planting’ investigation

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The Supreme Court of India Thursday rejected the petition of Gujarat ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s wife which challenged the investigation against him. Bhatt had been accused of implicating a Rajasthan-based lawyer in a 22-year-old narcotics case.

A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph said the petition can be moved before the Gujarat High Court.

Earlier, Shweta, Bhatt’s wife had moved the court alleging that “her husband has been taken into custody in “the most arbitrary manner” and he has also been taken on police custody remand” and that he “is not allowed to execute Vakalatnama and any other documents required mandatorily to file the present Special Leave Petition”.

The bench, headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, termed the allegation as “serious” and directed the Gujarat government to respond to the charge by September 28. After hearing the petitioner’s counsel, Justice Gogoi had remarked that “normally in criminal matter the accused approaches the court. But here the wife has come. This is serious”.

Earlier, DGP CID (crime) Ashish Bhatia told The Indian Express that, “3-4 months back the Gujarat high court had asked the CID to investigate this case and we had formed a SIT which probed and found Sanjiv Bhatt had made out a false case against the lawyer. We have taken him for questioning. In all, we have 7 persons detained.”

Sumersingh Rajpurohit, the lawyer had filed the case against Bhatt. He was then serving as SP of Banaskantha district, and several others. Recently, 22 years after the complaint was filed, the Gujarat High Court had ordered a special investigation team (SIT) of CID to look into the case.

In the complaint, Rajpurohit had given names of Justice Jain, a former sitting judge in the Gujarat High Court, and Bhatt’s subordinate officers. He had alleged that he had been abducted and incriminated in a false NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) case.

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