1989 custodial death case: Sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt moves SC

Sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court challenging a Gujarat High Court order which had denied his request to summon certain additional witnesses for examination during the trial in a three-decade-old custodial death case.

Bhatt's plea was mentioned for urgent listing before a vacation bench of justices Indira Banerjee and Ajay Rastogi, which agreed to hear it on Wednesday.

However, Advocate Rajat Nair, appearing for the Gujarat government, termed it as delaying tactic by the former officer.

Senior advocate Salman Khurshid, appearing for Bhatt, sought urgent listing of the plea saying the trial was on and examination of these witnesses was necessary.

Nair said that the apex court has already passed an order on a similar plea challenging the high court's same order of April 16.

He said that another bench of the apex court had on May 24 directed the trial court not to delay the case any more in any manner whatsoever and not to entertain unnecessary applications delaying the decision in the case.

Nair said that the top court had directed the lower court to complete the trial positively by June 20 and Bhatt's plea is nothing but a tactic to delay the outcome of the case.

Bhatt is an accused in the 1989 custodial death case when he was posted as the additional superintendent of police in Gujarat's Jamnagar.

According to the prosecution, Bhatt had detained more than hundred persons during a communal riot there and one of the detainees had died in hospital after he was released.

Bhat was suspended in 2011 on charges of remaining absent from duty without permission and misuse of official vehicles and later sacked in August 2015.