The Aryavarth Express
Agency(Gujarat): In a significant legal proceeding, a Palanpur sessions court in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district has sentenced former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to a 20-year prison term. This judgment was for his involvement in a 1996 incident where he was found guilty of planting drugs to falsely implicate a Rajasthan-based lawyer. The court’s decision indicates that Bhatt’s 20-year sentence will commence sequentially after the completion of his life sentence related to a custodial death case in Jamnagar.
Bhatt, who was removed from his position in 2015 and has been incarcerated since 2018, faced conviction under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including those related to public servant misconduct, forgery, and criminal conspiracy. In addition to his prison term, Bhatt was fined Rs 2 lakh; failure to pay this fine would result in an additional year of imprisonment.
The case against Bhatt stemmed from an operation he led as the superintendent of police in Banaskantha, which resulted in the arrest of lawyer Sumersingh Rajpurohit under drug charges. These charges were later contested by Rajasthan police, who claimed that Rajpurohit was targeted to coerce him into relinquishing a disputed property. The controversy led to a call for a thorough inquiry by former police inspector I B Vyas, culminating in Bhatt’s arrest by the state CID in 2018.
Despite challenging the trial’s fairness and seeking a change in trial court due to alleged bias, the Supreme Court dismissed Bhatt’s pleas and imposed a penalty for his accusations against the lower court judge.
This latest sentencing compounds the legal challenges facing Bhatt, who was already serving a life sentence for a 1990 custodial death incident during his tenure as an additional superintendent of police in Jamnagar. The series of legal proceedings against Bhatt highlights intricate issues of law enforcement integrity and judicial accountability.