The Supreme Court on 11 December delivered a clear decision in the long-running matter involving former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt. The court declined his request to suspend the 20-year prison sentence he is serving for the 1996 drug planting case. This ruling came after yet another attempt by Bhatt to seek relief from the punishment imposed on him.

A bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi heard his plea. Bhatt, whose name has been tied to several controversies over the years, hoped the court would pause the execution of his sentence while his larger legal battles continued. Senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Bhatt, told the bench that Bhatt had already undergone more than seven years in jail. He specifically stated that Bhatt had served about 7 years and three months of a 3-month sentence. Despite his efforts to persuade the court, the bench made it clear that it was not inclined to interfere with the existing order.

During the hearing, Justice Maheshwari noted the seriousness of the matter and raised the issue of drug quantity, pointing out that the case involved 5 kg of drugs. This detail played a significant role in the court’s stance. Sibal responded by challenging the prosecution’s claims and argued that the evidence did not support such a high figure. He emphasized that the conviction was actually based on the possession of 1.015 kg of opium, which he said was not a commercial quantity under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act.

However, the State’s lawyer, Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, firmly opposed Bhatt’s request and countered Sibal’s arguments by presenting a sequence of actions attributed to Bhatt while he was serving as a district police officer. Singh argued that Bhatt had misused his authority and played an active role in arranging the entire incident. In his words, “He was a DSP in a particular district. He gets into a conspiracy that he will finance the procurement of opium, put it in a guest house…he gives his constable money to get opium…final recovery was 1.015, but I will show 4 other kgs…commercial quantity for opium derivative is 250 gms. The seized quantity is over 1 kg! That’s why 20 years,” Singh asserted. His strong remarks painted a detailed picture of how the prosecution believed the offence was carried out and why the punishment was severe.

This was not Bhatt’s first attempt to question the process. The previous year, he had moved the Supreme Court seeking the transfer of his trial to another sessions court, accusing the presiding judge of bias. The Supreme Court dismissed that plea as well and even imposed a penalty of 3 lakh rupees on him for making wrongful allegations against the trial judge. The court held that such accusations were unfounded and affected the dignity of the judicial process.

What is the case involving Bhatt

The case that has followed Sanjiv Bhatt for nearly three decades began in 1996 in Palanpur, located in Gujarat’s Banaskantha district. In March 2024, a sessions court convicted him under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for his role in a fabricated drug case. This conviction came 28 years after the incident, marking an unusual length of time for a case to reach its final stage.

At the time of the event, Bhatt was the District Superintendent of Police in Banaskantha. According to the findings presented in court, he misused his position to falsely implicate a Rajasthan-based lawyer named Sumersingh Rajpurohit. It was determined that Bhatt and his associates had placed 1.5 kg of opium in a hotel room in Palanpur to frame Rajpurohit. The case initially appeared strong because of the planted evidence, but the truth surfaced after the Gujarat CID and subsequently the Rajasthan Police investigated the matter. Their findings showed that Rajpurohit was innocent and that the Banaskantha police had intentionally framed him.

Bhatt’s conviction in the drug case is not the only serious judgment against him. He is also serving a life sentence in an unrelated custodial death case. In 2019, a Jamnagar court sentenced him to life imprisonment for his involvement in a 1989 custodial death. At that time, Bhatt was the ASP in Jamnagar, overseeing the detention of more than a hundred people during a communal riot. One of the detainees, Prabhudas Vaishnani, died due to injuries he suffered while in custody. The court held Bhatt accountable for the death, and combined with his other controversies, these events eventually led to him being dismissed from service in 2015.

Bhatt’s legal history reflects a long and complex journey, marked by allegations of power misuse, wrongful actions, and serious criminal convictions. With the Supreme Court once again rejecting his plea, his efforts to seek relief appear to be narrowing, while the weight of the judgments against him continues to define his public life.