Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt accused of forgery, conspiracy and other charges in the Gujarat Riots case, was remanded for seven days of police custody until July 20 by an additional magisterial court of Ahmedabad on Wednesday.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) was formed under the Detection of Crime Branch Ahmedabad by the Gujarat government to probe the roles of activist Teesta Setalvad, former Gujarat Director-General of Police R B Sreekumar and Bhatt in a case of forging evidence in various cases about post-Godhra riots of 2002.
Additional magistrate M V Chauhan permitted Bhatt’s request for an orthopaedic mattress, owing to his slipped disc condition, during his police custody period. Bhatt has been permitted this privilege at the Palanpur jail, where he is in judicial custody, serving life imprisonment in a 1990 case of custodial torture.
Advocate Anand Yagnik, representing Bhatt, submitted before the magisterial court of Chauhan that the SIT closure report of over 22,000 pages submitted in 2012 was already with the DCB as well as before the court and that the members of the present SIT were also part of the earlier SIT investigating the 2002 Gujarat riots and thus further police remand is not required.
“Thorough investigation (on allegations of a fabricated affidavit by Bhatt) was already done in 2012 (while submitting the SIT closure report)…then what remains to be thoroughly investigated 8-10 years later that requires police remand?” said Yagnik.
Stressing on the Supreme Court verdict that had observed that those responsible for keeping “the pot boiling” over the past 16 years “need to be in the dock and proceeded with in accordance with law”, Yagnik submitted that “in accordance with law does not permit the police to initiate proceedings 10 years later”.
Submitting that the questions of investigation that the investigation authorities have cited in their remand application such as when Bhatt met co-accused – activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat Director-General of Police R B Sreekumar – and other such aspects have already been answered in the SIT closure report and for the rest, Bhatt wants to exercise his right to remain silent from giving self-incriminating statements in light of the Nandini Satpathy judgment.
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