SC begins hearing on pleas of ex-IPS Sanjiv Bhatt

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday commenced hearing on the pleas of dismissed Gujarat Cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking apex court-monitored SIT probe into allegation of misuse of state machinery during 2002 post- Godhra riots and the alleged role of top BJP and RSS functionaries and some senior bureaucrats.

The two petitions of 2011 relating to it and fresh applications filed on Monday came up for a brief hearing before a bench of Chief Justice H L Dattu and justice Arun Mishra where senior advocate Indira Jaising, appearing for the sacked police officer, made submissions about the background of the cases.

The IPS officer, dismissed from service on August 18 this year, had filed the petitions in the apex court in 2011 against the lodging of FIRs against him by the Gujarat Police.

One of the petitions pertains to an FIR lodged by a Gujarat police constable in Ahmedabad alleging that Bhatt had pressurised him to sign an affidavit testifying that the IPS officer had participated in a high-level meeting after the Godhra carnage.

In another FIR, he has been accused of allegedly hacking then state's Additional Advocate General Tushar Mehta's e-mail account. Mehta is currently the Additional Solicitor General of India.

"Now there is a change in the political dispensation at the Centre and now court-monitored SIT probe in both cases is needed," Jaising said, adding that once the SIT probe is allowed, the role of certain individuals would become relevant.

In fresh applications, the sacked IPS officer had also sought to implead top BJP and RSS leaders and senior IAS officers alleging that they were part of a larger conspiracy to subvert the ends of justice.

The apex court had earlier stayed criminal proceedings against the officer.

In the applications, he has submitted that in 2011, he had sought a probe by the CBI post-Godhra riots but now since the agency is under the control of the Centre, there was a need of an independent Special Investigating Team to probe both the cases.

He has sought fresh investigation against him in all cases with a plea for direction to internet service providers to preserve all data he has put in the applications.