By Express News Service
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s wife’s plea challenging the police probe and his judicial custody in a 22-year-old case of alleged planting of drugs to arrest an advocate.
The apex court said he could approach an appropriate forum for relief.A Bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi held that it was not appropriate for the apex court to interfere in the ongoing investigation.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for the Gujarat government, said Bhatt was arrested on September 5 and produced before the jurisdictional magistrate at Palanpur within 24 hours seeking his police custody. He said the allegations of his wife that he was not allowed to sign the ‘vakalatnama’ were factually incorrect.
Bhatt and seven others, including some former policemen attached with the Banaskantha Police, were initially detained for questioning in the case.
Bhatt was the Banaskantha district superintendent of police in 1996.
As per the police, the Banaskantha Police under Bhatt had arrested one Sumersingh Rajpurohit, an advocate, in 1996 on charges of possessing around one kg of drugs.
At that time, the Banaskantha Police had claimed that drugs were found in a hotel room occupied by Rajpurohit in the district's Palanpur town.
However, a probe by the Rajasthan Police had concluded that Rajpurohit was allegedly falsely implicated by the Banaskantha Police to compel him to transfer a disputed property at Pali in Rajasthan.
It had also claimed to have found that Rajpurohit was allegedly abducted by the Banaskantha Police from his residence at Pali in Rajasthan.
Following the Rajasthan Police's investigation, former police inspector of Banaskantha I B Vyas had moved the Gujarat High Court in 1999 demanding a thorough inquiry into the matter.
In June this year, the high court had handed over the probe in the case to the CID while hearing the petition and asked it to complete the probe in three months.
Bhatt, a Gujarat cadre IPS officer, was suspended in 2011 on charges of remaining absent from duty without permission and misuse of official vehicles and later sacked in August, 2015.
Bhatt's wife Shweta has unsuccessfully contested the assembly election as a Congress party candidate against Prime Minister Narendra Modi from Maninagar constituency in Ahmedabad in 2012.
(With PTI inputs)
