AMN / WEB DESK
A court in Gujarat’s Porbandar has acquitted former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a 1997 custodial torture case, citing that the prosecution could not “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt”.
Additional chief judicial magistrate Mukesh Pandya on Saturday acquitted Bhatt, the then superintendent of police (SP) of Porbandar, in a case registered against him under IPC sections pertaining to causing grievous hurt to obtain confession and other provisions by giving him the benefit of the doubt due to lack of evidence.
The case against Sanjiv Bhatt was filed under sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) related to causing hurt to register a confession. A case were also filed against constable Vajubhai Chau, but it was removed later following his death. The court stated that the prosecution could not establish that Naran Jadav, the complainant was tortured under a police custody.
Bhatt was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1990 custodial death case in Jamnagar and 20 years in jail in a 1996 case relating to planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer in Palanpur. He is currently lodged in the Rajkot Central Jail.
The court held that the prosecution could not “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt” that the complainant was forced to confess to the crime and made to surrender by voluntarily causing pain using dangerous weapons and threats.
It also noted that the sanction required to prosecute the accused, who was then a public servant discharging his duty, had not been obtained in the case.
Bhatt and constable Vajubhai Chau, against whom the case was abated after his death, were charged under sections 330 (causing hurt to extort confession) and 324 (causing hurt with dangerous weapons) of the Indian Penal Code on the complaint by one Naran Jadav for causing him physical and mental torture in police custody to extract confession in a Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and Arms Act case.
A first information report was filed against Bhatt and Chau in a Porbandar city B-division police station on April 15, 2013, following the court’s direction on Jadav’s complaint before a magistrate court on July 6, 1997.
Jadav was one of the 22 accused in the 1994 arms landing case.
According to the prosecution, a team of Porbandar police had taken Jadav to Bhatt’s residence in Porbandar on July 5, 1997, from the Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad on a transfer warrant.
Bhatt is undergoing life imprisonment in a 1990 Jamnagar custodial death case.
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.
Naran Jadav, the complainant was one of the accused in the 1994 arms landing case. Jadav claimed that he and his son were tortured in the police custody and were subjected to even electric shocks on various parts of their bodies to admit the charges. He also claimed that the police even gave electric shocks on the private areas of their bodies.
He alleged that he was transferred from Sabarmati Central Jail in Ahmedabad to Bhatt’s residence in Porbandar on July 5, 1997, where the torture took place. Upon a probe into the allegations from Jadav, a case was registered on December 31, 1998 and summons were issued to Bhatt and Chau.
Sanjiv Bhatt is currently serving life imprisonment in the 1990 custodial death case of Prabhudas Vaishnani, one of the accused detained during a riot in Jamjodhpur following a bandh linked to BJP leader L K Advani’s halted Rath Yatra. He was also convicted in a 1996 case of planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer.