Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt was handed down a 20-year jail sentence on 28th March in connection with the 1996 drug-planting case by a Sessions court in Palanpur, Gujarat’s Banaskantha district. He was awarded the jail term in accordance with NDPS sections 21(c) and 27A (the penalty for supporting illicit traffic and harbouring offenders). Furthermore, he has been fined two lakh rupees.
He was found guilty a day before by Additional Sessions Judge JN Thakkar of violating the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985’s sections 21(c), 27A (punishment for financing illicit traffic and harbouring offenders), 29 (abetment and criminal conspiracy to commit offence under NDPS Act), and 58 (1) and (2) (vexatious entry, search, seizure, and arrest).
He was already deemed culpable under sections 465 (Forgery), 471 (using forged document), 167 (public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), 204 (secrets or destroys any document), 343 (wrongful confinement), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intent) of the Indian Penal Code 1860.
Notably, he was apprehended in September 2018 at the Gujarat High Court’s request that the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) investigate the case of Sumer Singh Rajpurohit, a lawyer from Rajasthan who was falsely accused by the Banaskantha police of possessing 1.5 kg of opium at a hotel in Palanpur in 1996. The counsel, a resident of Pali, was arrested in the matter.
The drugs were planted in a Palanpur hotel room as part of a “well-planned conspiracy” to get a property vacated in Rajasthan’s Pali district. Sanjiv Bhatt was the district superintendent of police during that time and IB Vyas, an inspector from Palanpur’s local crime branch was also named as a co-accused in the case. The latter turned into an approver in 2021.
The prosecution’s case was that Bhatt and the other perpetrators planned to exploit the NDPS Act to frame the attorney. An appeal filed by him last August 2023 sought a transfer of his trial in the 1996 drug-planting case to a court in the Banaskantha district. However, the Gujarat High Court denied the plea.
The drug planting case was shelved for almost two decades, from 1996 to 2018, when the Gujarat High Court ordered in April 2018 that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) made up of Gujarat CID (Criminal Investigation Department) officials look into a false complaint accusing Sanjiv Bhatt and others of falsely implicating the lawyer. In September 2018, he was arrested in connection with the case, 22 years after the incident.
At present, Sanjiv Bhatt who was removed from the force in 2015 is already incarcerated for life in a case involving custodial torture and death. The former IPS officer has been convicted twice in two criminal cases. In 2019, he was given a life term in jail for a 1990s custodial death in Jamnagar. His petition against the trial court’s ruling was denied by the Gujarat High Court in January, which maintained the conviction in the case.
