Supreme Court declines bail to expelled Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhat

Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhat 
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

Supreme Court on Tuesday (April 29, 2025) declined bail to expelled Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a custodial death case. The top court, however, ordered the lower court to expedite trial. Bhatt is undergoing life imprisonment in a 1990 Jamnagar custodial death case.

He is facing multiple cases of custodial torture

A court in Gujarat in 2019 sentenced dismissed IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to life imprisonment in a custodial death case dating back to 1990 when he was the Additional Superintendent of Police in Jamnagar district.

A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta said there was no merit in his plea for bail or the suspension of sentence in the case.

“We are not inclined to grant Sanjiv Bhatt bail. The prayer of bail is dismissed. The hearing of appeal shall not be affected. The hearing of appeal is expedited,” Justice Nath said while pronouncing the verdict.

The appeal of Bhatt against the conviction and life imprisonment is presently pending in the top court.

Bhatt has moved the top court in 2024 challenging the Gujarat High Court’s January 9, 2024 order dismissing his appeal. The high court also upheld the conviction of Bhatt and co-accused Pravinsinh Zala under Sections 302 (murder), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.

In March 2024, the former IPS officer was also sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by a court at Palanpur in Banaskantha district in a 1996 case related to planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer.

Bhatt’s acquittal in 2019 custodial death case

Last year, in December, a court in Gujarat’s Porbandar has acquitted former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in another custodial torture case from 1997, citing that the prosecution could not “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt”.

He is also an accused in a case of alleged fabrication of evidence in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots cases along with activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat director general of police R.B. Sreekumar.

Sanjiv Bhatt’s suspension

Mr. Bhatt had hit the headlines when he filed an affidavit in the apex court alleging then Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat riots. A special investigation team debunked these allegations.

He was suspended from service in 2011 and sacked by the Ministry of Home Affairs in August 2015 for “unauthorised absence”.

On October 30, 1990, then additional superintendent of police Bhatt detained around 150 people following a communal riot in Jamjodhpur town following a ‘bandh’ call against the halting of BJP leader L K Advani’s ‘rath yatra’ for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Prabhudas Vaishnani, one of the detained persons, died in hospital after his release.

Vaishnani’s brother accused Bhatt and six other police officials of torturing him in custody and causing his death.

(With inputs from PTI)