1990 Custodial Death Case | Gujarat HC Dismisses Ex-IPS Officer Sanjiv Bhatt's Appeal Challenging Conviction & Life Term

The Gujarat High Court today dismissed an appeal filed by Sanjiv Bhatt, a former Indian Police Service officer, challenging his conviction and life imprisonment sentence imposed by the Jamnagar Court in connection with an alleged case of custodial torture and death dating back to 1990.

The incident relates to the death of one Prabhudas Madhavji Vaishnani in November 1990, which was allegedly due to custodial torture. At the time, Bhatt was the Assistant Superintendent of Police Jamnagar, who, along with other officers, took into custody about 133 persons, including Vaishnani, for rioting during a Bharat Bandh.

Vaishnani, who was kept in custody for nine days, died ten days after release on bail. As per medical records, the cause of death was renal failure.

Following his death, an FIR was registered against Bhatt and a few other officers over the allegations of custodial torture. Cognizance of the case was taken by the Magistrate in 1995. However, the trial remained stayed till 2011 due to a stay by the Gujarat High Court. Later the stay was vacated and trial commenced.

In June 2019, a Sessions Court in the State's Jamnagar district sentenced Bhatt and a police constable (Pravinsinh Zala) to life imprisonment in the case after convicting them under sections 302 (murder), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (1) (punishment for offence of criminal intimidation) of IPC. 

Apart from them, police constables Pravinsinh Jadeja, Anopsinh Jethva and Kesubha Dolubha Jadeja and police sub-inspectors Shailesh Pandya and Dipakkumar Bhagwandas Shah were also found guilty of custodial torture and were convicted under Sections 323 and 506 (1) of IPC.

Challenging their conviction, Zala, Bhatt, Shah and Pandya moved the HC in 2019.

Dismissing their criminal appeal, a bench of Justice Ashutosh Shastri and Justice Sandeep N. Bhatt observed that the reasoning given by the Jamnagar Court was correct and hence, there was no reason to interfere with the order of conviction. 

With regards to the role played by different accused, the Court noted that prominent and important roles from the act of picking persons from their houses, bringing them to police station, beating them, making them to do repeated and excessive situps, crawling etc. - was all attributed to Sanjiv Bhatt who held higher most rank among the police persons.

His exhortation to other police persons for beating witnesses, and making them do sit-ups was narrated by witnesses in their evidence, which was similar to the role of another accused named Pravinsinh Zala, it was observed.