Ex-cop Sanjiv Bhatt jailed for 1996 drug bust

Sanjiv Bhatt was fired from the Indian Police Service in 2015 (file photo)

A court in Palampur town of Banaskantha district in Gujarat on Wednesday sentenced former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to jail in a 1996 drug seizure case.

The court is expected to announce the penalty amount on Thursday afternoon. This is the second time Sanjiv Bhatt has been convicted in a criminal case, the first time was in 2019 when he was found guilty in a Jamnagar court.

Additional District and Sessions Judge JN Thakkar convicted Sanjiv Bhatt of accusing a Rajasthani lawyer of murdering him in a hotel room where he was staying in Palanpur in 1996 Drugs were found inside.

Sanjiv Bhatt was sacked from the Indian Police Service in 2015 as Banaskantha district police chief.

The former police officer’s wife Shweta expressed disappointment at the verdict, calling it a “miscarriage of justice”.

The district police under Sanjiv Bhatt arrested Rajasthan lawyer Sumersingh Rajpurohit under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS Act) in 1996, claiming they were in Palam where he was staying. Drugs were seized from Poole’s hotel room.

However, the Rajasthan police later said that the Banaskantha police had wrongly suggested that Rajpurohit was forced to move a disputed property in Pali, Rajasthan.

Former police inspector IB Vyas filed a complaint in the Gujarat High Court in 1999, seeking a thorough investigation into the case. Sanjiv Bhatt was arrested by the state Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in September 2018 in a drugs case under the NDPS Act and has been lodged in the Palanpur sub-jail since then.

Last year, the former IPS officer had moved the Supreme Court seeking transfer of the 28-year-old drug case to another court, alleging bias. He also sought directions regarding recording of proceedings before the trial court.

However, the Supreme Court rejected Sanjeev Bhatt’s plea and fined him Rs 3 lakh for alleging bias in the lower court judge’s trial in the drug cultivation case.

During the drug case trial, a court in Jamnagar in 2019 found Sanjeev Bhatt guilty of murder in a 1990 custodial death case and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The custodial death occurred when Sanjiv Bhatt was serving as Deputy Superintendent of Police of Jamnagar district.

Sanjeev Bhatt’s wife Shweta calls the entire drug case a “fiction”.

“This sentence is a miscarriage of justice. This is a fictitious case that has been going on here for five and a half years. My husband was not involved in it. The whole case is a fabrication and I will say that tomorrow (Thursday) when the court announces the amount of the penalty. Details will be given,” she told reporters outside court.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)