Sanjiv Bhatt, who accused Modi in Guj riots, acquitted in 1997 case
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Porbandar: A Gujarat court acquitted former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt- who testified against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 Gujarat riots case- in the 1997 custodial torture case. The court noted that the prosecution could not prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
Bhatt, who testified on Modi’s involvement in the deadly riots, was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1990 custodial death case in Jamnagar and 20 years in jail in a 1996 case relating to planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer in Palanpur. He is currently lodged in the Rajkot Central Jail.
Additional chief judicial magistrate Mukesh Pandya on Saturday (December 7, 2024) acquitted Bhatt, the then superintendent of police (SP) of Porbandar, in a case registered against him under IPC sections pertaining to causing grievous hurt to obtain confession and other provisions by giving him the benefit of the doubt due to lack of evidence.
The court held that the prosecution could not "prove the case beyond reasonable doubt" that the complainant was forced to confess to the crime and made to surrender by voluntarily causing pain using dangerous weapons and threats.
It also noted that the sanction required to prosecute the accused, who was then a public servant discharging his duty, had not been obtained in the case.
He is also an accused in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots cases, along with human rights activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat director general of police R.B. Sreekumar.
Bhatt, who was removed from police service by the Gujarat government over unauthorised absence, moved the Supreme Court challenging the Gujarat High Court’s January 9, 2024 order dismissing his appeal.
He was suspended from service in 2011 and sacked by the Ministry of Home Affairs in August 2015 for “unauthorised absence.”