A court in Gujarat’s Porbandar district last week acquitted former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a 1997 custodial torture case.
In his verdict, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Mukesh Pandya noted that the prosecution failed to “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt” and that no proper sanction to prosecute Bhatt, who was the Superintendent of Police (SP) of Porbandar at the time, was obtained.
Bhatt, who is currently lodged in Rajkot Jail, is already serving a life sentence for a 1990 custodial death case in Jamnagar and a 20-year sentence in a 1996 case involving the alleged planting of drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer in Palanpur.
The charges in the 1997 case stemmed from a complaint filed by one Naran Jadhav, who accused Bhatt of subjecting him to physical and mental torture in police custody to extract a confession in a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and Arms Act case. Bhatt was charged under sections 330 (causing hurt to extort confession) and 324 (causing hurt with dangerous weapons) of the IPC.
Jadhav, one of the 22 accused in a 1994 arms recovery case, alleged that on July 5, 1997, he was transferred from Ahmedabad’s Sabarmati Central Jail to Bhatt’s house in Porbandar under a transfer warrant. During this period, he claimed to have been tortured, including being subjected to electric shocks.
Jadhav later lodged a formal complaint before a Judicial Magistrate, who ordered an inquiry. Based on the findings, a case was registered against Bhatt and a police constable, Chau, in December 1998. Summons were issued to both, and an FIR was filed in 2013. The case against Chau was abated after his death.
In March 2024, a Sessions Court in Palanpur sentenced Bhatt to 20 years in prison for the 1996 drug-planting case.
Additionally, Bhatt is facing an FIR in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots, alongside activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat DGP R.B. Sreekumar.
