Charge sheet filed against Sanjiv Bhatt in drug planting case

The Gujarat CID has filed a charge sheet against former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and three others in connection with a 22-year-old case of alleged planting of drugs to frame a person.

The investigating agency filed the charge sheet Friday in the court of additional sessions judge P S Brahmbhatt. Sanjiv Bhatt is currently in judicial custody.

In the charge sheet, the CID has accused Bhatt of hatching a criminal conspiracy with his subordinate officers.

Apart from the offence of criminal conspiracy under the IPC, the accused have also been charge sheeted under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

Then police inspector I B Vyas and head constable Malabhai Desai are co-accused in the case which dates back to 1996 when Bhatt was superintendent of police of Banaskantha district.

He was arrested on September 5 this year on the order of the Gujarat High Court.

According to the CID, Banaskantha police arrested Sumersingh Rajpurohit, a lawyer, in 1996 on the charges of possessing around one kg of opium.

The drug was found in a hotel room in Palanpur town where he was staying, police said.

However, a probe by Rajasthan Police found that Rajpurohit was allegedly falsely implicated by Banaskantha Police to compel him to transfer a disputed property in Pali, Rajasthan.

It was also found that Rajpurohit was allegedly abducted by Banaskantha Police from his house in Pali.

Vyas, the former police inspector from Banaskantha moved the Gujarat High Court in 1999, demanding a thorough inquiry into the matter.

In June this year, the HC handed over the probe to the CID, asking it to complete the probe in three months.

Bhatt was sacked by the Union Home Ministry in August 2015 for "unauthorised absence" from service.

He had had several run-ins with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in Gujarat over the 2002 post-Godhra riots.

He had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court claiming that he attended a meeting at then chief minister Narendra Modi's residence in Gandhinagar on February 27, 2002, where Modi allegedly instructed top police officers to allow Hindus to "vent their anger" after the Godhra train burning incident.

Bhatt's claim was rejected by the apex court-appointed Special Investigation Team.

The Palanpur court will be hearing Bhatt's bail plea on November 6.