The Gujarat High Court on Tuesday rejected the appeal of ex-Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt and upheld his conviction and life sentence handed down by a Jamnagar sessions court in a case related to custodial death.
The decision of the sessions court was affirmed by a division bench comprising Justices Ashutosh Shastri and Sandeep Bhatt.
“The trial court’s decision to convict the appellants is justified. We affirm this verdict and reject the appeals,” declared the bench during the judgment pronouncement.
The case revolves around an incident from 1990, during Bhatt’s tenure as the additional superintendent of police in Jamnagar district.
As the additional superintendent of police in Jamnagar district, he detained approximately 133 individuals under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) in the aftermath of a communal riot that erupted in a town in Jamnagar. The riots ensued following a Bharat Bandh called by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on October 30, 1990, in protest of the arrest of Lal Krishna Advani, then BJP chief, who had initiated a Rath Yatra procession to Ayodhya for the Ram Mandir issue.
Among those detained, Prabhudas Vaishnani died after being released from custody. His family alleged that he had endured custodial torture at the hands of Bhatt and his colleagues. The family claimed that the detainees were indiscriminately beaten with sticks and coerced into various acts, such as crawling on their elbows. It was further alleged that they were denied access to water, leading to kidney damage in Vaishnani’s case.
Vaishnani spent nine days in police custody. After being released on bail, he succumbed to renal failure. Subsequently, an FIR was filed against Sanjiv Bhatt and other officers for custodial death, and a Magistrate took cognizance of the matter in 1995.
A total of seven police officers were implicated in the case, including two sub-inspectors and three police constables. The accused in the case were Sanjivkumar Bhatt IPS, Dipakkumar Bhagwandas Shah PSI, Shaileshkumar Labhshankar Pandya PSI, Pravinsinh Bavubha Zala PC, Pravinsinh Jorubha Jadeja PC, Anopsinh Mohbbatsinh Jethva PC, and Kesubha Dolubha Jadeja PC.
