Porbandar: A local court in Porbandar has acquitted controversial sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a 1997 custodial torture case, stating that the prosecution failed to “prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.” In his ruling on Saturday, Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Mukesh Pandya granted Bhatt the benefit of the doubt due to insufficient evidence.

The case, filed against Bhatt while he was serving as Superintendent of Police (SP) in Porbandar, involved charges under Sections 336, 330, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which pertain to causing injury with dangerous weapons, torturing individuals in custody to extract confessions, and committing crimes in furtherance of a common intention. These charges were based on a criminal complaint filed by Naran Jadav Postariya, who alleged that Bhatt, the then-SP of Porbandar, was involved in the torture.

The court noted that the prosecution was unable to prove that the complainant, Naran Jadav, had been tortured to extract a confession. It also pointed out that the required sanction to prosecute Bhatt, who was a public servant at the time, had not been obtained.

Bhatt is currently serving a life sentence for the 1990 custodial death case. He was also convicted in 1996 for planting drugs to frame a Rajasthan-based lawyer and sentenced to 20 years in prison in March 2024. Additionally, he faces charges of fabricating evidence in connection with the 2002 Gujarat riots, alongside activist Teesta Setalvad and former Gujarat DGP R B Sreekumar. DeshGujarat