SC rejects three pleas by sacked IPS officer with Rs 3 lakh cost

The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed three pleas filed by sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, including the one alleging bias against a lower court judge conducting his trial in an alleged drug-planting case.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Rajesh Bindal imposed costs of Rs one lakh each for filing three separate pleas and ordered that the amount be deposited with the Gujarat High Court Advocates Association.

The court reprimanded his counsel, senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, for filing similar pleas in the past.

"How many times have you been to the Supreme Court, at least a dozen times,” the bench said.

The court also referred to an earlier order of another bench in a similar plea filed by him.

In one plea, the former IPS officer sought the transfer of the trial to another sessions court alleging bias, and in the second one, he sought directions for audio-video recording of the trial court proceedings.

The third one sought to adduce additional evidence in the case.

The former IPS officer was arrested in 2018 by the Gujarat CID in connection with the case of the alleged planting of drugs to arrest a man.

Bhatt, the then police officer, had arrested one Sumersingh Rajpurohit, an advocate, in 1996 on charges of possessing around one kg of drugs.

Previously, another bench on May 10 had dismissed a separate plea of Bhatt seeking a direction to submit additional evidence to support his appeal in the Gujarat High Court against his conviction in a 1990 custodial death case.

He had also sought the recusal of Justice M R Shah, since retired, from hearing his plea on May 10.

Bhatt has been a strong critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and has filed a plea in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots.