Controversial disgraced cop Sanjiv Bhatt was arrested in September by Gujarat CID over the 1998 drug planting case after the High Court directed a probe. After that, several of his bail pleas have been rejected. The Gujarat government has vehemently opposed Bhatt’s latest bail application.
On 7th December, a Palampur court in the Banaskantha District had denied bail to Sanjiv Bhatt. The Court had cited Bhatt’s false statements and bad behaviour before denying bail. The court also mentioned Sanjiv Bhatt’s criminal past and that if granted bail, he would be in a position to tamper with evidence since the case diary had already been tampered with. The court also mentioned Sanjiv Bhatt’s past behaviour while denying bail. Reportedly, the court observed that earlier, Bhatt had got bail from a Pali court in the same case on the condition that he would not leave the country. But the disgraced cop ended up leaving the country multiple times, disregarding his bail condition.
After the Palampur Court had rejected Bhatt’s bail application, the tainted cop approached the High Court for the same. Bhatt had contested that he had already appealed against the FIR against him in Kota and that he cannot be prosecuted for two FIRs simultaneously, in the same case. In an affidavit submitted to the court, the Gujarat state government has opposed Bhatt’s claim that there cannot be two FIRs in the same case. The Gujarat government said that the FIR registered in Palanpur is different from the FIR registered in Kota.
The government said that Sanjiv Bhatt has influenced probe in the past and if released, he would proceed to do the same. The government also reiterated the earlier position that Bhatt, in the past had gone abroad when his bail conditions strictly prohibited him from doing so. The Gujarat government asserted that Bhatt had a criminal past and several FIRs pending against him.
In November, the CID chargesheet said that Sanjiv Bhatt, who was then the Superintendent of Police of Banaskantha district, gave Rs 20,000 to a policeman to buy opium to falsely implicate a Rajasthan based lawyer. He had instructed policemen to buy 1 kg of opium and plant it on the Rajasthan based lawyer. After the plant was complete, they conducted a fake raid to implicate the lawyer.
The lawyer, Sumer Singh Rajpurohit was kidnapped from Pali (Rajasthan) and the drugs were planted on him by Palanpur police. In a sordid twist, it was also alleged that the Palanpur police had done so to get the lawyer to vacate the property which allegedly belonged to the relative of the then Gujarat HC judge, Ramanlal Rajmal Jain.
Sanjiv Bhatt is accused of being the mastermind behind the entire operation of kidnapping the lawyer and plating the narcotics that implicated the Rajasthan based lawyer.
