New Delhi, Jan 22 (UNI) The Supreme Court on Friday adjourned to January 27, the petition filed by former Indian Police Service officer Sanjiv Bhatt to suspend his life sentence in the 30-year-old custodial death case.
A three-judge bench, comprising Justices Ashok Bhushan, M R Shah and R Subhash Reddy, adjourned the matter on request of Bhatt's counsel Advocate-on-Record Farrukh Rasheed.
Rasheed informed the bench that the senior counsel in the matter was indisposed and requested for the case to be taken up next week.
Bhatt had been awarded life sentence by a sessions court in Jamnagar (Gujarat) in June this year in the custodial death of Jamjodhpur resident Prabhudas Vaishnani in November 1990.
In October 2019, the Gujarat High Court refused to suspend the life sentence of Bhatt as he had also allegedly defamed courts and tried to mislead them.
Bhatt, in his petition in Supreme Court, argued that the Gujarat High Court failed to consider the fact that the custodial death case was taken into consideration only in 2011 when he made statements against Narendra Modi who was the Gujarat chief minister that time. He also stated that the victim had died after he was released from the prison and out of 300 witnesses only 32 were cross-examined.
Bhatt was Assistant Superintendent of Police Jamnagar in 1990 when Vaishnavi, along with 133 others were taken into custody over riots.
In 2015, he was dismissed from his services.
Bhatt had argued that the case against him is a "political vendetta".
UNI SV SB 1440