The Supreme Court on Friday reserved its verdict on a Special Leave Petition filed by expelled Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking suspension of sentence awarded to him by the Gujarat High Court in a custodial death case of 1990.
Appearing for Bhatt before the Bench of Justice Vikram Nath and Justice Sandeep Mehta, Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal contended that there was no evidence to convict Bhatt, who has remained in custody for more than five years.
As per Sibal, medical evidence suggested that the victim, Prabhudas Madhavji Vaishnani, died due to pre-existing medical conditions. There was no medical evidence of any physical torture. The death happened about 20 days after the release of the victim from custody. Although the victim had immediately met the family doctor after release, he did not make any complaint of police torture, added the Senior Counsel.
He remarked that if these kind of trials started taking place, where would the country go?
Representing the State of Gujarat, Senior Advocate Maninder Singh refuted the petitioner’s arguments. He said the medical evidence showed that the victim died due to renal failure, caused by the forceful sit-ups and crawling, which he was made to do by the police throughout the night. There was clear evidence that torture led to kidney problems.
Singh pointed out that Bhatt was serving a 20-year sentence in another case, relating to planting of drugs to implicate a person. There were no justifiable circumstances to suspend the sentence, considering the evidence on record and also other criminal antecedents of the convict, he added.
He further said that the Supreme Court had earlier dismissed Bhatt’s petitions to suspend the sentence while his appeal was pending in the Gujarat High Court.
Appearing for the informant (brother of the deceased), Advocate Vanshaja Shukla highlighted that it was a case where justice was delivered nearly 30 years after the incident and that the Courts must be mindful of the rights of the victims.
The matter pertained 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 was kept in custody for nine days. He died 10 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. A Magistrate court took cognisance of the case in 1995. The trial, however, remained stayed till 2011 due to a stay by the Gujarat High Court. The stay was later vacated and the trial commenced.
In June 2019, a Sessions Court in Jamnagar district of Gujarat sentenced Bhatt and 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.
The court also found police constables Pravinsinh Jadeja, Anopsinh Jethva and Kesubha Dolubha Jadeja, along with police sub-inspectors Shailesh Pandya and Dipakkumar Bhagwandas Shah guilty of custodial torture, and convicted them under Sections 323 and 506 (1) of IPC.
Zala, Bhatt, Shah and Pandya filed a criminal appeal in the High Court in 2019.
The Bench of Justice Ashutosh Shastri and Justice Sandeep N Bhatt refused to interfere with the trial court order on the grounds that the reasoning given by the Jamnagar Court was correct.
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