Supreme Court Judge Justice MR Shah Refuses To Recuse From Hearing Sanjiv Bhatt's Plea

On Monday, Supreme Court Judge, Justice M.R. Shah made it abundantly clear that he will not recuse from hearing a plea filed by former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking to adduce additional evidence in the criminal appeal filed by him in the Gujarat High Court challenging his conviction in a 1990 custodial death case.

As the Counsel for the petitioner sought adjournment in terms of the letter circulated by him, a Bench comprising Justice MR Shah and Justice CT Ravikumar apprised him that the Bench had rejected the adjournment letter and Justice Shah would not recuse from hearing the matter. Justice MR Shah asked the Counsel -

“Before 10 years some order was passed, can that be a ground (for seeking recusal)?”.

The recusal was sought on the ground that Justice MR Shah had dealt with certain issues of the matter when he was a judge of the Gujarat High Court.

Senior Advocate, Atmaram Nadkarni appearing for the State of Gujarat also indicated that the State has opposed the letter circulated by the petitioner.

In July 2019, the Sessions Court at Jamnagar in Gujarat had sentenced Bhatt to life imprisonment after finding him guilty for the custodial death of one Prabhudas Madhavji Vaishnani in 1990. Before the trial court, he had filed an application to produce expert evidence of one doctor to support his argument that the death of Prabhudas was not due to the alleged sit ups he was made to do forcefully by the police. The trial court had rejected the application. In the criminal appeal before the Gujarat High Court, Bhatt filed an application under Section 391 Cr.P.C. seeking to adduce expert evidence. On 24.08.2022, the application was dismissed. The same has now been challenged before the Apex Court.

In April 2011, Bhatt had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court accusing the then Chief Minister Narendra Modi of complicity in the 2002 riots. He claimed to have attended a meeting convened by the then CM, Mr. Modi, on February 27, 2002, the day of the communal riots, when instructions were allegedly given to the State Police to not take any action against the perpetrators of violence.

The Court appointed SIT however gave clean chit to Modi. In 2015, Bhatt was removed from the police service, on the ground of "unauthorised absence".

In October 2015, the Supreme Court dismissed Bhatt's plea for constituting a special investigation team (SIT) for cases filed against him by the Gujarat Government.

[Case Title: Sanjiv Kumar Rajendrabhai Bhatt v. State of Gujarat SLP(Crl) No. 9445/2022]