A court in Gujarat’s Porbandar has acquitted former IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt in the 1997 custodial torture case, saying the prosecution “could not prove the case beyond reasonable doubt”.
Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Mukesh Pandya acquitted on Saturday Porbandar’s then Superintendent of Police (SP) Bhatta In a case registered against him under IPC sections for causing grievous hurt to obtain confession and other provisions by giving him the benefit of doubt in the absence of evidence.
Bhatt was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment in the 1990 Jamnagar custodial death case and 20 years in the 1996 Palanpur case of planting drugs to trap a Rajasthan lawyer. He is currently in Rajkot Central Jail.
The court held that the prosecution “failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt” that the complainant was coerced into confessing to the crime and forced to surrender voluntarily using dangerous weapons and threats.
It is also mentioned that the accused, who was a public servant at the time, was not given the necessary permission to take action in the said case.
Bhatt and police constable Vajubhai Chow, whose case was dropped after his death, were booked under sections 330 (causing hurt by force) and 324 (causing hurt by dangerous weapon) of the Indian Penal Code on the complaint of one Naran Jadhav. Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and Arms Act cases to obtain statements of terrorists and subversives by subjecting them to physical and mental torture in police custody.
A case was registered against Bhatt and Chow at the B Division police station in Porbandar city on July 6, 2013 based on a complaint by Jadav on July 6, 2013, on the direction of the court.
Jadhav was one of the 22 accused in the 1994 arms landing case.
According to the prosecution, a team of Porbandar police took Jadav to Bhatt’s residence in Porbandar on a transfer warrant from Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad on Sarwa 5, 1997.
Electric shocks were applied to various parts of Jadav’s body, including his private parts. The son was also given an electric shock.
An investigation was ordered after the complainant later reported the torture to a judicial magistrate’s court. Based on the evidence, the court registered a case in 2072 and issued summons to Bhatt and Chow in 1998.
On April 15, 2013, the court ordered an FIR against Bhatt and Chow.
Bhatt is serving life imprisonment in the 1990 Jamnagar custodial death case.
In March 2024, a former IPS officer was also sentenced to 20 years in prison by a court in Palanpur in Banaskantha district in 1996 for planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer.
He is also accused in the 2002 Gujarat riots cases in connection with activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat Director General of Police RB Sreekumar in the alleged fabrication of evidence case.
Bhatt, who was dismissed from the police service by the Gujarat government for unauthorized absence, moved the Supreme Court challenging the January 9, 2024 order of the Gujarat High Court dismissing his appeal.
The high court had convicted Bhatt and co-accused Pravinsingh Jhala for murder under sections 302 (murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC by a sessions court in Jamnagar on June 20, 2019. .
As the then Additional SP, Bhatt detained around 150 people following communal riots in Jamjodhpur town on October 30, 1990, following a ‘bandh’ call to protest against BJP leader LK Advani’s ‘rath yatra’ to stop construction of Ram. Temple in Ayodhya.
Prabhudas Vaishnani, one of the arrested, died in the hospital after being released.
Bhatt hit the headlines when he filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court alleging the role of then Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots. The Special Investigation Team has dismissed these allegations.
He was suspended from service in 2011 and dismissed by the Home Ministry in August 2015 for “unauthorized absence”.