Ahmedabad: A Gujarat court on Wednesday convicted former Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Sanjiv Bhatt for falsely implicating a Rajasthan-based lawyer in a drugs case when he was district superintendent of police (SP) of Banaskantha in 1996.

This is the second case in which Sanjiv Bhatt has been convicted; the first was in June 2019 when a Jamnagar court sentenced him to life imprisonment in a custodial death case in October 1990.

Sanjiv Bhatt’s wife Shweta said her husband was innocent. “The court delivered conviction in the case. I will provide further details tomorrow after the court announces the sentencing. This case is entirely fabricated, and my husband had no role in it,” Shweta Bhatt told reporters after additional district and sessions judge JN Thakkar delivered a guilty verdict on Wednesday.

The sessions court will pronounce the quantum of punishment on Thursday.

The case relates to a 1996 arrest of a Rajasthan lawyer during Sanjiv Bhatt’s tenure as Banaskantha SP when drugs were allegedly found in the lawyer’s hotel room in Palanpur.

Bhatt was alleged to have fabricated evidence against the lawyer by planting 1.5 kg opium in the lawyer’s room to coerce the lawyer out of a commercial property in Rajasthan’s Pali town. A probe by the Rajasthan police later revealed that the lawyer was falsely implicated and allegedly abducted by Banaskantha Police from his residence in Pali.

Bhatt along with his subordinate IB Vyas were arrested in September 2018 after the Gujarat high court ordered an inquiry into the matter. Vyas subsequently became an approver in the matter. Bhatt was dismissed from the services in 2015.

Bhat is currently serving life imprisonment in a custody death case in 1990 when he was additional SP in Jamnagar district. In this case, Bhatt detained over 130 individuals under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) after a communal riot after the Bharatiya Janata Party and Vishwa Hindu Parishad called for a Bharat Bandh.

One detainee, Prabhudas Vaishnani, later died in hospital, leading his family to allege custodial torture.

An FIR was registered against Bhatt and other officers for custodial death and cognizance was taken by a magistrate in 1995. Seven police officers including two sub-inspectors and three police constables were accused in this custody death case.

Bhatt approached the Gujarat high court against the sessions court convicting him in the custody death case in 2019. In January this year, the high court upheld his conviction and life sentence.