LI Network
Published on: October 4, 2023 at 12:23 IST
The Supreme Court of India has dismissed three petitions filed by former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, related to a drug seizure case, and has imposed fines of Rs 1 lakh for each petition.
A bench comprising Justice Vikram Nath and Rajesh Bindal made the ruling, stating that Bhatt had repeatedly approached the courts on the matter. The court directed Bhatt to pay the total fine amount of Rs 3 lakh to the Gujarat High Court Advocates Association.
One of the rejected petitions sought to transfer the trial to another court, alleging unfair treatment by the current trial court judge.
This decision follows previous rejections by the Supreme Court, where Bhatt’s plea challenging a Gujarat High Court directive for expediting the drug seizure case trial was denied, accompanied by a fine of Rs 10,000.
In a separate case, in June 2019, a Gujarat court had sentenced Bhatt to life imprisonment in a custodial death case from 1990. Subsequently, on May 10, the Supreme Court declined another plea by Bhatt, seeking to present additional evidence in an appeal filed in the Gujarat High Court challenging his conviction. Bhatt’s lawyer had presented the deposition of three witnesses who were doctors.
However, the Supreme Court, comprising bench of Justices MR Shah and CT Ravikumar, ruled that the trial court had already thoroughly examined these witnesses’ testimonies.
The Supreme Court emphasized that commenting on the witnesses’ depositions at this stage could affect the ongoing appeal process in the High Court.
Consequently, the Special Leave Petition was dismissed, and the court reiterated that any observations might impact the case for both parties during the High Court’s consideration.