The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by the former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt that challenges the Gujarat High Court order that had refused to quash one of three criminal complaints filed against him.
A bench of Justice MR Shah and Krishna Murari after reading the order in detail held that there was no reason to interfere with the same.
The Court said “Having gone through order of learned magistrate summoning the petitioner accused and the impugned judgment and order passed by the high court, we see no reason to interfere with judgment and order of high court in exercise of powers under article 132 of the Indian constitution”
The allegation on Bhatt is filed by three persons, who accuse Bhatt and his colleagues for torturing them when they were detained in a case of unlawful assembly.
The summons were issued to Bhatt and the others implicated alongside him by a Magistrate in Jamnagar. The same was challenged by through petitions before the Gujarat High Court.
The Gujarat High Court quashed two complaints but declined to quash the third one.
The Court took notice of order when a co-ordinate bench of the High Court said that accused’s versions of events differed from each and therefore needed to be tested at trial.
The High Court emphasised that the summons orders issued in the other two complaints specified that the complainants were members of the unlawful assembly, which was not the case in the third complaint.
The Counsel appearing for Bhatt said that all cases are the same, ad soon enough court will understand.
The Counsel also said that the order set a bad precedent and if the same was upheld, it would demoralize the police force as its officials would always be under threat of action.
The plea stated that “It is to ensure that the officers are able to function independently without any fear that the statutory protection has been provided for, even for initiation of a complaint. Therefore, the High Court erred in rejecting the petition.”
The Supreme court, did not deem it fit to interfere with the orders of the courts.
Thus the petition was dismissed.