The Gujarat High Court on Wednesday rejected a petition by IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt to drop a “frivolous” case registered against him of allegedly torturing inmates in the Porbandar jail, of which he was in charge in 1994.
The complaint was filed more than a decade ago by some released inmates who said Mr. Bhatt had “tortured” them to extract confessions in some cases.
The State cadre IPS officer earlier created a flutter, filing an affidavit in the Supreme Court implicating Chief Minister Narendra Modi in the 2002 communal riots.
Meanwhile, the G. T. Nanavati–Akshay Mehta judicial inquiry commission, probing the riots, has rejected an application from danseuse Mallika Sarabhai for permission to cross-examine Mr. Bhatt and the retired Additional Director-General of Police, R. B. Shreekumar, in connection with alleged attempts by Mr Modi to subvert a public interest litigation petition she had filed in the Supreme Court then.
Mr Bhatt, in his affidavit in the Supreme Court, mentioned about an alleged attempt by Mr. Modi to “bribe” Ms. Sarabhai's advocates to ensure that they did not pursue the PIL petition which could prove “dangerous” to his administration. While Mr Bhatt then refused to give further details as his affidavit, connected with Zakia Jafri's petition, was still pending before the court, Mr. Shreekumar filed an affidavit before the commission claiming part-knowledge of Mr. Modi's attempts to “subvert” the PIL petition.
( Zakia's husband, Ehsan Jafri, a former Congress MP, was killed in the Gulberg Society carnage during the 2002 riots. She moved the Supreme Court after the High Court dismissed her petition for registration of a murder and conspiracy case against Mr. Modi and others.)
Mr Shreekumar, in his affidavit before the commission, claimed that Mr Modi had asked him to arrange for Rs. 10 lakh from the Intelligence Department's “secret fund,” of which he was chief in 2002. When Mr. Modi was told that the fund did not have that much money, the amount was arranged by the then Chief Secretary from some other sources and handed over to Mr. Bhatt for being passed on to Ms. Sarabhai's advocates through the then Minister of State for Home, Amit Shah.
The commission, rejecting Ms Sarabhai's plea, noted that the incident, if true, did not fall within the “scope of inquiry” for which the commission was set up. It, however, allowed Mr. Bhatt and Mr. Shreekumar to file affidavits and give further details “to enable this commission to decide whether the event is relevant or is likely to help its inquiry.”
