HC judge recuses self from hearing on Sanjiv Bhatt's bail plea

A Gujarat High Court judge on Wednesday withdrew himself from the hearing of a bail application of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, arrested in a 1996 case of alleged drug planting.

Bhatt approached the high court after a court at Palanpur in Banaskantha district rejected his bail plea.

When the case came up before Justice A Y Kogje, he said "not before me," thus recusing himself form the matter.

Bhatt was arrested in September this year.

He was the superintendent of police in Banaskantha in 1996 when the local police arrested Sumersingh Rajpurohit, a lawyer, claiming to have seized drugs from his hotel room in Palanpur town.

However, the Rajasthan police said later that Rajpurohit was falsely implicated by the Banaskantha Police to compel him to transfer a disputed property located at Pali in Rajasthan.

In June this year the Gujarat High Court handed over the probe to the state CID.

Bhatt was sacked by the Union home ministry in August 2015 on the grounds of "unauthorised absence" from service.

Earlier, he had crossed swords with the then Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi on several occasions.