Former Gujarat cadre IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, whose services were terminated on August 19, today (16 September) urged the Supreme Court to order court monitored SIT probe into the allegation of email hacking against him. Appearing for Bhatt, senior counsel Indira Jaising told a bench of Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justice Arun Mishra that he was seeking court monitored SIT probe, instead of one by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) as sought by him earlier, on account of change in political dispensation at the Centre.
Gujarat’s former additional advocate general, Tushar Mehta (who is now Additional Solicitor General for the Central Government) had filed an FIR against Bhatt, accusing him of hacking his email account.
Bhatt had then contended that the email hacking complaint was filed by Mehta at the behest of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then the Gujarat chief minister, to falsely implicate, pressurize and intimidate him and other witnesses in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Jaising also sought the impleadment of the people who are likely to be impacted if Bhatt’s plea for court monitored SIT probe was allowed by the court.
The apex court had in 2011 issued notice on Bhatt’s plea for CBI probe into the email hacking case. At that point of time, the Congress-led UPA government was in power.
Bhatt had said that he and Mehta are “very close family friends for last two decades”, and in September 2009, he was asked by Mehta to access his e-mail account to check confirmation of the accommodation for their trip to Goa. It was then, Bhatt had said, that he saw the “unusual mails” indicating “unholy nexus and illegal complicity between high functionaries of state of Gujarat”.
