Supreme Court seeks Gujarat's response on Sanjiv Bhatt appeal against conviction in 1990 case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Gujarat government on former police officer Sanjiv Bhatt's appeal against his conviction and life sentence in a 1990 custodial death case [Sanjiv Kumar Rajendrabhai Bhatt vs State of Gujarat]..A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Prasanna B Varale said the appeal will be listed with other appeals related to the case."Issue notice returnable in four weeks," the Court ordered. Senior Advocates Kapil Sibal and Devadatt Kamat represented Bhatt. Senior Advocate Maninder Singh appeared for the State of Gujarat..The Gujarat High Court had in January dismissed the former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer's appeal against the verdict of a Jamnagar sessions court in the custodial death case.Bhatt then filed present appeal through advocate Rajesh Gulab Inamdar.The Supreme Court had in May last year refused to grant the former Gujarat-cadre officer permission to produce additional evidence before the High Court in the matter. That was after (now-retired) Justice MR Shah had refused to recuse from the case..The present case pertains to an incident which took place in 1990 when Bhatt was an additional superintendent of police at Jamnagar district. He had detained nearly 133 persons under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activites (Prevention) Act (TADA) after a communal riot broke out there. The riots took place after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) had called for a Bharat Bandh on October 30 that year, to protest the arrest of Lal Krishna Advani, the then BJP chief, who had started a Rath Yatra procession to Ayodhya for the Ram Mandir issue. Among the detained persons, one Prabhudas Vaishnani died after being released from custody. His family alleged that he was subjected to custodial torture by Bhatt and his colleagues. The family alleged that the persons detained were recklessly beaten up with sticks and were compelled to do certain acts like crawling on elbows. They weren't even allowed to drink water which damaged Viashnani's kidneys, it was alleged. Vaishnani was in police custody for nine days but after being released on bail, he had died of renal failure. Subsequently, an FIR was registered against Bhatt and other officers for custodial death, and cognisance was taken by a Magistrate in 1995.A total of seven police officers were accused in the case including two sub-inspectors and three police constables.