Complaint 'shaky', Bhatt out on bail

Express News Service Posted online: Tue Oct 18 2011, 05:45 hrs

Ahmedabad : After spending 17 days behind the bars, suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt was on Monday released after the Ahmedabad District (Rural) Sessions Court on Monday gave him bail, saying the complaint against him was on shaky ground and the complainant's versions inconsistent.

The court called the state government's case prima facie very difficult to believe and raised doubts on the 'unnatural' behaviour of the complainant, Constable K D Panth.

Bhatt was arrested on September 30 after Panth -- who had worked as an assitant intelligence officer with him in 2002 -- accused the IPS officer of wrongfully confining him and forcing him to sign an affidavit corroborating the former's presence at Chief Minister Narendra Modi's residence on February 27, 2002.

Bhatt -- who was charged with wrongful confinement and fabricating evidence -- claimed that at the meeting, held after the Godhra train carnage, Modi had said Hindus should be allowed to vent their anger.

Additional Sessions Judge V K Vyas challenged Panth's complaint at every stage, questioning why the constable had taken five days to lodge a complaint on being threatened to file an affidavit. It also noted that the day after his alleged confinement by Bhatt, Panth had corrobated his affidavit before an executive magistrate.

The court dismissed the charges of "wrongful confinement" and that of signing a pre-drafted affidavit on the grounds that Panth said in his complaint that he had gone to Bhatt's house in his own car with a friend and then stayed at the advocate's house till early morning. Panth said they drafted the affidavit the whole night and he also went out for a smoke.

"Looking at the facts of the case, it is very difficult to believe that the accused had in any manner wrongfully confined the complainant or had threatened him," the court observed.

The court observed that as per the complainant's version, if the affidavit was ready, it could not have taken the entire night to prepare it.

Judge Vyas doubted the very fact that Panth -- who had been an assistant sub inspector in the intelligence department -- could sign an affidavit without reading it under duress from an officer the government had suspended.

The court also questioned Panth's claim that he was not in Gandhinagar or Ahmedabad on February 27, 2002 and that he had gone to Mumbai on an errand for one of his relatives.

The court observed that the investigating officer had recorded statements of various persons who corroborated Panth's claim. No important documentary evidence had been found to prove his presence in Mumbai, it said.

The court noted that till the filing of the affidavit, Panth did not know anything about February 27, 2002. However, on July 7, 2011, he minutely recalled all details about that day like the time, licence plate of the car in which he claimed to have gone to Mumbai, driver's name, persons who accompanied him and advocate-notary of Mumbai. This, if not impossible, surely is not natural, the court observed.

The prosecution had argued that Bhatt was in collusion with Congress leader Arjun Modhwadia and said they were in contact with each other. The court said there was nothing on record to show what conversation took place between them.