By IANS,
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to the central and Gujarat governments on a petition by suspended police officer Sanjiv Bhatt seeking that the probe into an email hacking case against him be transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
Notice has also been issued to the CBI and Gujarat’s Additional Advocate General Tushar Mehta.
An apex court bench of Justice Aftab Alam and Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai issued the notice after Bhatt’s counsel I.M. Syed told the court that it had already issued notice to the state government on a petition seeking transfer of the investigation following a first information report (FIR) against him by his official driver.
Mehta had filed an FIR against Bhatt, an Indian Police Service officer, accusing him of hacking his email account.
Bhatt, however, contended that the email hacking complaint was filed by Mehta at the behest of Chief Minister Narendra Modi to falsely implicate, pressurise and intimidate him and other witnesses in the 2002 Gujarat riots.
He said that he has earned the displeasure of the chief minister because in “several of his depositions before the SIT as well as the ongoing depositions before the commission of inquiry, has revealed certain facts which have the potential of directly implicating Shri Narendra Modi in the Gujarat riots of 2002 as well as the subsequent on going cover-up operations…”
Bhatt said that he has also revealed “the unholy nexus between the investigating agencies, prosecuting agencies, and high officer bearers of the government of Gujarat for undermining certain judicial proceedings…”
Following on the earlier petition seeking transfer of investigation to an independent agency, Bhatt told the court that he filed an affidavit wherein he placed on record several e-mails of Mehta that brings out “unholy nexus and illegal complicity between the high functionaries of the state..”, including Modi, the then minister of state for home Amit Shah, Mehta and “other extraneous political entities in the on going cover-up operations aimed at shielding highly placed persons from prosecution for alleged heinous crimes”.0
It was in respect of these e-mails, that Mehta has alleged that Bhatt had hacked his e-mail account.
Bhatt said that he and Mehta are “very close family friends for last two decades”. In September 2009, he was asked by Mehta to access his e-mail account to check confirmation of trial accommodation for their trip to Goa.
It was then, Bhatt says that he saw these “unusual mails” indicating “unholy nexus and illegal complicity between high functionaries of State of Gujarat…”
As his duty that under the law as a police officer, Bhatt said that he brought out these facts to the notice of the apex court in his additional affidavit filed July 29, 2011.
Bhatt was arrested Sep 30 for allegedly forcing a police constable, K.D. Panth, to sign a false affidavit about his attending a meeting called by the chief minister on the night of Feb 27, 2002, soon after the Godhra train burning that sparked the riots.
A special court in Ahmedabad Oct 17 granted bail to him.