Ahmedabad: The Gujarat High Court has admonished sacked former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and the other accused while hearing the appeal against the punishment meted out to Bhatt in the Jamjodhpur custodial death case. The high court said that it had noticed the efforts being made by the accused to delay the proceedings in the case at any cost by very often changing lawyers during the hearing.

The high court has to conduct the hearing in this case not as per the convenience of the accused but as per the directions issued by the Supreme Court. This behavior of the accused is highly improper.

In the sensational custodial death of one Prabhudas Vishrani, the Jamnagar sessions court has sentenced former IPS Officer, Sanjiv Bhatt, to life imprisonment. Five other accused too have been given various sentences by the trial court in the same case. Yesterday, during the hearing of an appeal against the sentencing by the trial court, Sanjiv Bhatt argued in the High Court that he was completely unaware of the fact that the matter was listed for hearing.

This led to an angry response from the high court, which told Bhatt that the case was going on since 2019 and to hear such words from Bhatt’s mouth was unthinkable.

The high court told Bhatt that he had been given several opportunities even in the past. The high court has also taken the matter of frequent changing of lawyers by the accused seriously and given them one final opportunity. It has scheduled the next hearing in the case on July 27. DeshGujarat