SC declines Sanjiv Bhatt's plea in custodial death case

The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to consider a plea by Sanjiv Bhatt, sacked IPS officer from Gujarat, seeking fresh examination of witnesses in a case of custodial death against him.

Bhatt moved the apex court challenging a Gujarat High Court order, which declined his request to summon certain additional witnesses for examination during the trial in the case.

The Gujarat government informed the apex court that the trial court has already reserved judgement in the 30-year-old custodial death case for June 20.

A vacation bench of the Supreme Court, comprising Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Ajay Rastogi, found merit in argument of the Gujarat government and prosecution that all witnesses had been produced, and as a result the trial had been concluded, and that this was nothing but a delaying tactic.

Bhatt is an accused in the 1989 custodial death case during his tenure as the Additional Superintendent of Police in Gujarat's Jamnagar.

The prosecution alleged that the case was related to a communal riot when Bhatt detained more than a hundred people and one of the detainees died in hospital upon his release.

Bhatt was suspended in 2011 for remaining absent without any sanctioned permission and also misusing the allotted official vehicles. He was sacked in 2015.

--IANS

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