The Supreme Court on Monday, 5 September, dismissed an appeal by former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt challenging an order of the Gujarat High Court that had refused to quash one of three criminal complaints filed against him, according to Live Law.
The bench disposed of the Special Leave Petition and noted in its order that it found no reason to interfere with the matter.
"Having gone through the order of the learned magistrate summoning the petitioner accused and the impugned judgment and order passed by the high court, we see no reason to interfere with the judgment and order of High Court," Live Law quoted the bench as saying.
The complaint is one of three filed against Bhatt, accusing the former IPS officer and his colleagues of illegal detention and custodial torture in a case related to unlawful assembly in 1990.
Background of the Case
A communal riot broke out in Jamnagar following a bandh call ahead of senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani’s Rath Yatra in 1990. Bhatt was the assistant superintendent of police in Jamnagar then.
Among the 133 people detained by the police, one of them was Prabhudas Vaishnani who subsequently died in a hospital after his release.
However, his brother alleged that Vaishnani was tortured by policemen in the jail leading to his death, according to Hindustan Times.
The summons issued by the magistrate was challenged before the Gujarat High Court, where two complaints were quashed, but the high court refused to quash the third complaint citing that the complainants of the first two complaints were members of the assembly but the third was not, according to Live Law.
What Bhatt's Counsel Said
Bhatt's counsel claimed that the order set a bad precedent and if the same was upheld, it would demoralise the police force as its officials would always be under threat of action for the measures taken by them in an emergent situation of law and order.
"It is to ensure that the officers are able to function independently without any fear that the statutory protection has been provided for, even for initiation of a complaint. Therefore, the High Court erred in rejecting the petition."Plea by Sanjiv Bhatt
The former IPS officer was sacked in 2015 for “unauthorised absence” from service.
He was earlier suspended after he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of being complacent in controlling the 2002 Gujarat riots that took place when Modi was the state's chief minister, but Bhatt failed to provide any evidence on this charge. His account was also found to be false by a special investigation team (SIT) that probed the Gujarat riots cases.
(With inputs from Live Law, Bar and Bench, and Hindustan Times.)
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