SC dismisses former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s pleas; imposes Rs 3 lakh costs

New Delhi, October 3

Dismissing his petitions alleging bias against a lower court judge conducting trial in a drugs planting case against him, the Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered former Gujarat cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to shell out Rs 3 lakh as costs for wasting judicial time.

A Bench led by Justice Vikram Nath asked, “How many times have you been to the Supreme Court…At least a dozen times?” It went on to impose costs of Rs 1 lakh each for three separate petitions filed by Bhatt.

The amount has to be deposited with the Gujarat High Court Advocates’ Association, it said.

While one petition sought transfer of the trial to another sessions court alleging bias, his second petition demanded audio-video recording of the trial court proceedings. Bhatt’s third petition was for permission to adduce additional evidence in the case.

Bhatt, who was sacked from service in 2015, was a superintendent of police in Banaskantha district in 1996. The district police under him had arrested Sumersingh Rajpurohit, a Rajasthan-based lawyer, in 1996 claiming they had seized drugs from a hotel room in Palanpur town where he was staying.

However, the Rajasthan police later said Rajpurohit was falsely implicated by the Banaskantha police to compel him to transfer a disputed property located at Pali in Rajasthan. Former police inspector IB Vyas had approached the Gujarat High Court in 1999 demanding a thorough probe into the case.

Bhatt was arrested in 2018 by the Gujarat CID in connection with the case of alleged planting of drugs to arrest a man.

Another Bench had on May 10 had dismissed a separate petition filed by Bhatt seeking a direction to submit additional evidence to support his appeal in the Gujarat High Court against his conviction in a 1990 custodial death case.