The Gujarat government accused former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt of misleading the Supreme Court into believing that top State functionaries interfered in the administration of justice after the 2002 Gujarat riots.
The State was countering Mr. Bhatt’s allegations that he was victimised for his depositions before the Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the riots.
Mr. Bhatt claimed he had electronic evidence in the form of a trove of emails recovered from the email account of former Additional Advocate General Tushar Mehta, now an Additional Solicitor General in the Supreme Court.
The emails allegedly pointed to “collusion” between the prosecution and the defence in various sensitive cases -- from the Sohrabuddin Sheikh encounter case to the 2002 Gujarat riots cases -- involving high dignitaries. This included the then Gujarat Home Minister Amit Shah, Mr. Bhatt claimed.
Objecting to this, the Gujarat government, represented by Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, submitted before a Bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu that the accusations against the then State dignitaries had no basis and was “entirely misconceived.”
The State submitted that all the allegations, including the emails were brought to the notice of the SIT led by former CBI Director R.K. Raghavan and the Supreme Court’s own amicus curiae and senior advocate Raju Ramachandran in June-July 2011.
Once the SIT and the amicus had filed their reports, the Supreme Court had asked them to present it before the trial court under whose jurisdiction the trials were going on.
Mr. Kumar said the allegations made by Mr. Bhatt were mere pressure tactics on the SIT. A counter filed by the Gujarat government also highlighted how the Supreme Court in an order on May 1, 2009, appreciated the “apparent thoroughness” of the SIT’s investigative work.
