Ex-IPS Officer Sanjiv Bhatt's Bail Plea in 2-decade-old Drug Seizure Case Rejected

Ahmedabad, Mar 7 (PTI) The Gujarat High Court Thursday rejected a bail application filed by former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in connection with a two-decade-old drug seizure case.

Justice Sonia Gokani refused to grant relief to Bhatt, who is behind the bars since September last year in connection with a 23-year-old drug seizure case.

The former Gujarat-cadre IPS officer had approached the high court after a sessions court in Banaskantha district turned down his bail plea in December last year.

Bhatt, who was sacked from service in 2015, was a superintendent of police in Banaskantha district in 1996.

The district police under Bhatt had arrested one Sumersingh Rajpurohit, a Rajasthan-based lawyer, in 1996, claiming that they have seized drugs from a hotel room in Palanpur town where the latter was staying.

However, the Rajasthan police later said Rajpurohit was falsely implicated by the Banaskantha police to compel him to transfer a disputed property located at Pali in Rajasthan.

Former police inspector I B Vyas moved the Gujarat High Court in 1999 demanding a thorough inquiry into the matter.

In June last year, the high court handed over the probe to the state CID, and Bhatt was arrested in September.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)