Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Friday rejected two petitions filed by controversial sacked former IPS Sanjiv Bhatt challenging the orders of a trial court in Palanpur regarding a drug planting case from 1996.

Bhatt had challenged the trial court’s order that rejected his request to call certain witnesses for cross-examination. The court rejected the request, citing the completion of the prosecution’s evidence and a deadline to finish the trial. Justice Gita Gopi upheld the trial court’s decision and stated that if the court thought the applications were meant to delay proceedings, it had the authority to reject them.

In 2018, Bhatt, who was the Banaskantha SP at the time, and his subordinate I B Vyas were booked under the NDPS Act for allegedly planting opium on a Rajasthan-based lawyer to force him out of a commercial property in Pali town. DeshGujarat