Ahmadabad, Jan 13: A division bench of the Gujarat High Court upheld the life sentence and murder conviction of former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt and police constable Pravinsinh Zala in a 1990 case of alleged custodial torture and death.
Bhatt and Zala had appealed against a Jamnagar sessions court’s June 2019 verdict that had sentenced both to life imprisonment after finding them guilty of murder under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.
The case so far A Jamnagar sessions court sentenced Bhatt, who was the Additional Superintendent of Police in the Jamnagar district in 1990, in June 2019. Then police constable Pravinsinh Zala too was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Seven policemen, including Bhatt, were on trial in this case of which two were found guilty under Indian Penal Code sections 302 (murder), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 506 (1) (punishment for offence of criminal intimidation).
The two policemen found guilty were sentenced to life while five others were sentenced to two years of imprisonment.
Apart from Bhatt and Zala, then police constables Pravinsinh Jadeja, Anopsinh Jethva and Kesubha Dolubha Jadeja and police sub-inspectors Shailesh Pandya and Dipakkumar Bhagwandas Shah were all found guilty of custodial torture under IPC sections 323 and 506 (1).
The court sentenced all five to one year of imprisonment under IPC Section 323 and two years of imprisonment under Section 506 (1).
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