By PTI
A court in Gujarat’s Porbandar has acquitted former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a 1997 custodial torture case, citing that the prosecution could not “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt”.
Additional chief judicial magistrate Mukesh Pandya on Saturday (December 7, 2024) acquitted Bhatt, the then superintendent of police (SP) of Porbandar, in a case registered against him under IPC sections pertaining to causing grievous hurt to obtain confession and other provisions by giving him the benefit of the doubt due to lack of evidence.
Bhatt was earlier sentenced to life imprisonment in a 1990 custodial death case in Jamnagar and 20 years in jail in a 1996 case relating to planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer in Palanpur. He is currently lodged in the Rajkot Central Jail.
The court held that the prosecution could not “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt” that the complainant was forced to confess to the crime and made to surrender by voluntarily causing pain using dangerous weapons and threats.
It also noted that the sanction required to prosecute the accused, who was then a public servant discharging his duty, had not been obtained in the case.
This story was originally published in thehindu.com. Read the full story here.
