Gujarat cop Bhatt seeks CBI probe into hacking case against him
12 Nov 2011
Sanjiv Bhatt, the Gujarat police officer who was suspended from service by the state government, on Friday moved the Supreme Court seeking the transfer of investigation for allegedly hacking the email account of the state government's additional advocate general Tushar Mehta.
Bhatt pleaded that the investigation, currently in the hands of the Vastrapur police, be transferred outside Gujarat, preferably to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
A Supreme Court bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai refused to stay the Gujarat police's investigations into Mehta's complaint, but issued notices to the respondents in the petition and posted it for further hearing after four weeks.
Bhatt has been under pressure from the state government ever since he said that he was present at a meeting on 27 February 2002, where state chief minister Narendra Modi allegedly told police and administrative officials to go easy on Hindus carrying out an anti-Muslim pogrom in the wake of the burning of a railway coach carrying members of the Viswa Hindu Parishad (VHP) at Godhra.
In his complaint, additional advocate general Mehta had accused Bhatt of hacking his email account and sharing the information with others ''with an ulterior motive''.
''These communications contain my personal, official, and legal correspondences, which were not only unauthorisedly seen by Bhatt but also shared with others, which, apart from being a criminal offence, violates my right of privacy,'' he stated in the complaint.
Bhatt's lawyer I H Syed confirmed, ''The court has issued notices to the respondents (Union of India, Gujarat government, CBI and Tushar Mehta) and made it returnable after four weeks.'' He, however, said the state government's investigation was biased.
Bhatt was earlier arrested and subsequently freed on bail in another case registered against him for allegedly forcing a constable to sign an affidavit to corroborate his presence at the meeting called by Modi in February 2002.