Supreme Court rejects plea to suspend Sanjiv Bhatt’s 20-yr jail term in ’96 drug-planting case | India News – The Times of India

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court Thursday declined to suspend the 20-year jail sentence of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a 1996 drug planting case.Bhatt was convicted by a Gujarat court last year under various provisions of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and the IPC. He moved SC for suspension of sentence to get bail, but a bench Justices J K Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi declined to entertain his plea.This NDPS Act case pertained to the arrest of a Rajasthan-based lawyer, Sumer Rajpurohit, in 1996 by the Banaskantha Police following alleged recovery of drugs from his hotel room in Palanpur. Bhatt was then serving as DSP of Palanpur.Rajpurohit, who was discharged, later accused Bhatt and other cops of planting drugs to frame him. The same was done only to harass the lawyer with regard to a property dispute, it was alleged.Last year, the former IPS officer had approached SC seeking transfer of trial in the 28-year-old drug case to another sessions court alleging bias. He also sought directions for recording of the trial court proceedings.However, SC dismissed the plea and imposed Rs 3 lakh cost on him for alleging bias against the judge conducting trial in the drug planting case.