Custodial death case: SC to hear on Jan 10 plea of Sanjiv Bhatt seeking to bring additional evidence

At the outset, a bench of Justices M R Shah and C T Ravikumar asked senior advocate Devadatt Kamat, appearing for Bhat, if he was serious with regard to a plea seeking recusal of Justice Shah.

Kamat submitted the idea was not to attach ‘bias’ to the Judge but apprehension of ‘bias’. He said certain issues which are the subject matter of the Special Leave Petition had been decided by Justice Shah on an earlier occasion when he was a judge in the high court.

Justice Shah then remarked, “Your objection is rejected. Merely some order has been passed in some discharge application, it has nothing to do with this controversy. Apprehension should have a reasonable nexus. If you want, we can say many things to say… we will consider.” Kamat said he can demonstrate apprehension of bias and sought to explain his contention.

The top court said it will hear the matter on January 10.

In August 2022, Bhatt had withdrawn his plea in the apex court seeking suspension of his life sentence in the 30-year-old custodial death case.

The high court had earlier refused to suspend Bhatt’s sentence and observed he had had scant respect for courts and deliberately tried to misuse the process of law. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in June 2019 in the case.

The case relates to the custodial death of Prabhudas Vaishnani, who was among 133 people caught by Jamnagar police after a communal riot broke out following a bandh call in view of BJP leader L K Advani’s Rath Yatra.

Subsequently, his brother lodged an FIR accusing Bhatt, who was then posted as additional superintendent of police in Jamnagar, and six other policemen of killing his sibling by torturing him while he was in their custody.

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