New Delhi, April 29 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected ex-IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's plea seeking release on bail and suspension of sentence in a 1990 custodial death case. A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta was dealing with an appeal filed by Bhatt against the Gujarat High Court's judgment upholding the trial court's order of conviction and sentence of life imprisonment. It clarified that the dismissal of the instant plea for bail would not affect the hearing of the appeal on merits and directed expeditious hearing of the matter.

Earlier, the Gujarat High Court had dismissed Bhatt's appeal against the conviction and sentence. "We are of the view that the trial court has not committed any error in passing the impugned judgment and therefore, no interference is required in the present appeals. We are of the view that prosecution has proved the case against the respective accused/convicts and hence, no interference is required in the impugned judgment and order passed by the Ld. Trial Court," a bench of Justices Ashutosh Shastri and Sandeep N. Bhatt had ruled.

"We, also on our independent look, perusal and scrutiny of evidence, found that the conclusion arrived at by the learned trial judge in passing an order, impugned in this proceeding, is in consonance with material on record and in accordance with law and there is no element of perversity of any nature." In 2019, the Jamnagar Sessions Judge had convicted Bhatt for the offences punishable under sections 302, 323, 506 (1) read with sections 34 and 114 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). Dismissed from service in 2015, Bhatt has been incarcerated since 2018.

In March 2024, the Palanpur sessions court in Banaskantha district sentenced Bhatt to 20 years in jail for his involvement in a 1996 narcotics case. The trial court found Bhatt guilty of planting drugs to falsely implicate a Rajasthan-based lawyer in Palanpur, where Bhatt was serving as the Superintendent of Police at the time. Bhatt had arrested lawyer Sumersingh Rajpurohit under the NDPS Act, claiming that opium was found in his hotel room.

/IANS