Daijiworld Media Network
Ahmedabad, Oct 4: The sessions court here on Tuesday October 4 reserved its judgement on the Gujarat state government's petition to review the remand order regarding IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who was arrested on charges of intimidating and forcing a constable into signing an affidavit against chief minister Narendra Modi.
The decision on the petition has been postponed to October 7, while that on his bail plea has been deferred till Wednesday October 5.
Bhatt was arrested on Friday September 30 based on an FIR filed against him in June by constable K D Pant who alleged that he had been threatened and forced to sign an affidavit that claimed Bhatt's presence in a meeting called by Modi in February 2002 wherein the CM allegedly asked police to ignore the happenings in the Godhra riots.
Following Bhatt's arrest, the state government had asked for a seven-day police custody of the accused, a plea which was dismissed by Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate B G Doshi who remanded Bhatt in judicial custody.
The government then made a plea challenging the magistrate's order stating that it wanted to elicit some information from Bhatt regarding his bank accounts, the affidavit in question, involvement of other people if any and so on.
During the hearing Bhatt's lawyer I H Sayed argued that the application of the state government to review the remand order was not maintainable in law and cited a Supreme Court order to this effect.
But public prosecutor Pravin Trivedi insisted that the state government has the right to seek revision of the remand even after it is rejected.
Meanwhile, Bhatt who was present during the proceedings told the judge that he wanted to be present at the time of pronouncement of the order. However, his request was rejected and the judge asked the jail authorities not to bring him on October 7.
The judge proposed to hear his bail plea on Tuesday itself provided that he agreed to go on police remand for three hours. Bhatt rejected the suggestion and said that he does not care for the 'wrongs done by the Modi government' and that he would let the law take its course without resorting to any sort of compromise with 'goons'.