A bench of Chief Justice HL Dattu and Justice Arun Mishra while rejecting Bhatts plea asked the trial court to complete the hearing as expeditiously as possible.
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“The state government has placed on record e-mails sent and received by the petitioner which indicate that the petitioner has interacted with the deputy leader of the Gujarat Assembly, who belongs to rival political party”.
Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday said, “Today, it’s a matter of great assurance for us, South Carolina rejected Sanjiv Bhatt’s petition”.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the plea of sacked Gujarat cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking a court-monitored SIT probe. Bhatt had approached the South Carolina for an SIT probe instead of a CBI inquiry which he had sought earlier.
On the plea to transfer the case to SIT, the bench said “That can be done only in extraordinary cases”. Neither can it be said that he has come to the court with clean hands.
Bhatt has alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then Gujarat chief minister, had orchestrated the case to pressure and intimidate him and other witnesses of the 2002 Gujarat riots.
“The sheer magnitude of the collusion between the state administration and the accused persons and their lawyers to undermine the process of justice is unheard of, even in mass crimes trials”, said his application to the Supreme Court. The court said Bhatt had also invoked the provisions of TADA during his tenure. Ghost questions and answers were also prepared as to what the petitioner was required to speak before Justice Nanavati Commission, ‘ Justice Mishra, who wrote the judgment for the bench, observed.
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Bhatt leaked a series of emails between Mehta, who was then additional advocate general of Gujarat, and a few of the accused in the riots, alleging that Mehta shared confidential information and legal documents with the accused against whom the state was conducting cases. “It does not appear that the email exchange between the then AAG and other functionaries tantamounts to causing prejudice or amounts to substantial interference in any other manner in due course of justice”.
