The Gujarat High Court on Thursday rejected the bail plea filed by former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who is presently behind bars in connection with a 22-year-old drug planting case.

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The plea was rejected by the single judge bench of Justice Sonia Gokani, albeit with liberty to approach the court again, if the trial is not completed within six months. Bhatt's bail plea in the 1996 case was earlier rejected by a Palanpur court in Banaskantha district on December 7, 2018, against which he had moved the high court.

The state government had vehemently opposed the bail plea and had submitted that there is ample material against the petitioner, which is more than substantial for his inevitable conviction. The government had also contended that the petitioner had abused the process of law by creating a situation in which the offence committed in the year 1996 has not even reached the stage of framing of charge even after 22 years.

The state had also contended that the former IPS officer has serious criminal antecedents and even in them, the trial has not come to a conclusion because of various methods adopted by the petitioner. This apart, the government had contended that Bhatt would tamper with the evidence and certainly influence the witnesses, especially police officials who were his subordinates.

The government had also submitted that Bhatt is already guilty of breaching the bail conditions imposed by the court in other offences and had visited foreign countries. It was also argued that he would surely abscond if released on bail.

On the contrary, Bhatt had argued before the court that the investigation in the case after two decades was an abuse of law. He had also contended that he had been already interrogated in the case and he was not going to abscond as he has deep roots in the society with movable and immovable assets.

The Case

As per the case details, the former cop is accused of framing a Rajasthan-based lawyer Sumer Singh Rajpurohit by planting drugs in his hotel room to pressurise his relatives to vacate a property owned by a judge’s sister. The state CID-crime had arrested Bhatt from his house in Ahmedabad on September 5, 2018, in connection with this drug planting case.