Gujarat High Court rejects Sanjiv Bhatt’s bail application

The Gujarat high court on March 7 rejected the bail application of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and ordered the trial court to fast-track the hearing of the 23-year-old case against him to complete it in six months.

Sanjiv, whose services were terminated in 2015, was arrested on September 5, 2018 on the charge of implicating a businessman-lawyer of Pali of Rajasthan in a drug-peddling case 23 years ago.

His bail application was earlier rejected by the district sessions court to Palanpur after a prolonged hearing spanning over three months. He then moved the Gujarat high court which too took nearly three months to pass an order.

While his case was posted before the high court where first a judge recused himself, the next one was changed on the first date of hearing and finally came to the one-member bench of Justice Sonia Gokani.

Also read: Sanjiv Bhatt bail hearing: Kafka’s ‘The Trial’ revisited in Gujarat’s Palanpur