The Supreme Court on Tuesday imposed costs of ₹3 lakh on former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt for repeatedly filing petitions in relation to a drug planting case against him.
Jailed former police officer Sanjiv Bhatt who, as a whistleblower, exposed them Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat Muslim genocide, has been in jail since 2018 in a case of custodial death in Jamnagar that was registered in 1990.
On Tuesday, a bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Rajesh Bindal said that Bhatt has been repeatedly filing petitions and proceeded to impose costs of ₹1 lakh for each of the three pleas which Bhatt filed.
“How many times have you been to the Supreme Court? At least a dozen times? Last time Justice Gavai imposed ₹10k costs? This time 6 figures? Are you withdrawing? Justice Gavai was kind,” said Justice Vikram Nath while imposing costs and dismissing the plea, reports Bar and Bench.
The costs have to be deposited with the Gujarat High Court Advocates Association, the top court directed.
The apex court was hearing the former cop’s appeals against a Gujarat High Court ruling from August 24 this year that had rejected his application raising concern about the fairness of the trial court judge hearing the drug planting case filed against him.
The case arose from the arrest of a Rajasthan-based lawyer in 1996 by the Basankantha Police after drugs were seized from the advocate’s hotel room in Palanpur, Rajasthan. Bhatt was the Superintendent of Police at Basankantha during the relevant time. However, later the Rajasthan Police claimed that Bhatt’s team had lodged a false case and that the same was done only to harass the lawyer with regard to a property dispute. Bhatt was arrested in the case in September 2018 and has remained in jail since then.
Bhatt who filed an affidavit before the Supreme Court alleging that the Modi-led Gujarat government had a complicit role in the 2002 Gujarat genocide, was arbitrarily dismissed from service by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in 2015.
