Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt arrested in 22-year-old drug ‘planting’ case

Sanjiv Bhatt, a 1988 batch IPS officer was dismissed from service in 2015 after the release of sex video purportedly featuring him.

Former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt was arrested by Gujarat CID-Crime on Wednesday in connection with a 22-year-old case. Bhatt has been accused of framing a lawyer from Rajasthan in a false case by planting drugs at a Palanpur hotel room in Banaskantha in 1996 as part of a “well-planned conspiracy” to get a property vacated in of Rajasthan. Bhatt was SP of Banaskantha district then. The then inspector of Banaskantha Crime Branch, I B Vyas, has also been arrested.

DGP (CID-Crime) Ashish Bhatia said all the seven people involved in the case, including Bhatt, have been detained, and two of them have been arrested. “During the investigation, it has come to light that as part of a well-planned conspiracy, Bhatt and his accomplices had lodged a false case of narcotics against the lawyer to get a disputed property vacated. After careful investigation, Bhatt and Vyas have been arrested today,” an official release from the CID-Crime said.

The case with a long history and multiple litigations relates to the arrest of lawyer Sumersingh Rajpurohit, who was booked by Banaskantha police under the provisions of Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act on April 30, 1996. Rajpurohit had however claimed that he was framed in the case by Bhatt at the behest of a former sitting judge of Gujarat High Court R R Jain over a rented property — a shop at Vardhaman Market in Pali (Rajasthan)— where he and one more person were tenants.

Bhatt, a 1988 batch IPS officer, had several run-ins with the BJP government in the past over the issue of the 2002 post-Godhra riots. He was dismissed from service in 2015.