Gujarat ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt gets 20-year jail for frame-up

Palanpur, March 28

A court in Palanpur in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district on Thursday sentenced former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to 20 years in jail in a 1996 case involving planting of drugs to frame a lawyer.

Bhatt was held guilty of falsely implicating a Rajasthan-based lawyer by claiming that the police had seized drugs from a hotel room in Palanpur where the lawyer was staying. Bhatt was Banaskantha SP at the time. The court also clarified that Bhatt has to serve the 20-year sentence consecutively, which means it will start after the end of the life sentence in the Jamnagar custodial death case.

Bhatt was sacked from the force in 2015 and has been behind bars since 2018.

Additional District and Sessions Judge JN Thakkar convicted Bhatt on Wednesday under relevant sections of the NDPS Act and IPC. The quantum of punishment was announced on Thursday.

Bhatt was also fined Rs 2 lakh and he will have to spend an additional year in jail if he fails to pay it, the judge said in his order. Bhatt’s lawyer SB Thakor said his client would challenge the verdict. “The court only presumed that opium was purchased and planted (by Bhatt). Otherwise, there was no concrete evidence to prove that charge,” Thakor said.