AHMEDABAD: Twenty-two years on, a case of alleged planting of narcotic substance has come back to haunt the
Gujarat police and the judiciary.
The
Gujarat high court ordered am SIT of the CID (crime) on Monday to probe within three months the case involving former HC judge R R Jain, dismissed IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, and Banaskantha police for allegedly falsely implicating a Rajasthan-based lawyer in a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, in Palanpur in 1996.
Justice J B Pardiwala expressed shock that “the serious criminal complaint filed in 1996 was never investigated in over two decades, while a related case in
Rajasthan was thoroughly probed”.
In May 1996, Banaskantha police arrested an advocate, Sumersingh Rajpurohit, from Pali district in Rajasthan after cops allegedly found over 1kg
opium from a hotel in Palanpur. A day later, the hotel owner could not identify Rajpurohit during a test identification parade, and police immediately filed a summary report for his discharge. A special court accepted the discharge report a week later.
Five months later, Rajpurohit filed a complaint in Pali against Justice Jain, then a sitting judge in the Gujarat HC; Bhatt, who was then the district SP of Banaskantha; and his subordinate police officers. Rajpurohit alleged he was kidnapped and framed in a false NDPS case to get Jain’s sisters’ shop in Pali vacated. The shop had been occupied by Rajpurohit’s family.
The investigation carried out by Rajasthan police revealed that Rajpurohit was abducted by Palanpur cops, who visited his town in civilian dress in a vehicle with a fake number plate. But his family members sent an SOS to other advocates, who forced the local police to intercept the Palanpur cops, according to the chargesheet filed by Rajasthan police. The arrest was then reportedly made official.
A probe substantiated Rajpurohit’s allegations that he was falsely framed. Rajasthan police also brought on record the call details of Justice Jain, Bhatt and others.
Interestingly, the probe also mentioned that Rajpurohit’s family and Jain’s relatives had prepared an agreement to transfer the possession of the shop, specifying the condition in writing that Rajpurohit would be released from jail as soon as the shop’s possession was transferred.
After Rajasthan cops completed the investigation probe indicting Gujarat police, a petition was filed in the HC in 1998 by Justice Jain, who was no longer serving in the higher judiciary then. He demanded a thorough probe of the FIR registered in Palanpur which he said would reveal the truth that Rajasthan police had investigated the case under the influence of then Rajasthan CM and the bar association of Pali.
In 1999, another petition was filed with a similar prayer by Bhatt’s subordinate I B Vyas, who had probed the Palanpur NDPS case. Both submitted that a thorough probe of Palanpur’s FIR would reveal the source of information about the narcotic substance and how Rajasthan police investigated the case with malice. The petitioners also demanded re-investigation by the CBI of the case filed in Pali.
The case pertaining to the Rajasthan police’s chargesheet against Gujarat cops is at present pending before the Supreme Court.