Bhatt denied ‘confidential’ documents for inspection

2002 riots Suspended IPS officer seeks direction to govt to produce all intelligence documents

Suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt has asked the Nanavati-Mehta Commission, probing the 2002 riots, to direct the state government to produce all the intelligence documents sought by him and allow him its inspection. He has objected to the government's alleged non-compliance of its undertaking given to the Gujarat High Court of handing over all the intelligence and police documents related to the riots.

Of the 47 documents sought by Bhatt, the government has not produced 24 while calling them "confidential". It has also not produced some documents stating that either there was no provision to maintain them or they were still tracing those documents or the said document was never supplied to the authorities.

Following a round of litigation by Bhatt, the HC recently disposed of a PIL jointly moved by Bhatt and a voluntary organisation after the Advocate General (AG) gave an undertaking that the documents sought by Bhatt had already been submitted before the Commission. The AG had also given undertaking that if some documents had not been submitted before the Commission, it would be done within a week.

On October 23, the Commission had written a letter to Bhatt stating that out of the 47 documents, the government has produced 15 documents while many others were not produced on various grounds.

Bhatt has objected to this and demanded that the government be directed to produce all the documents and that the Commission should allow its collective inspection to him.

He has alleged that the government is creating impediments in filing an affidavit before the Commission by not providing the documents under one pretext or the other. He has expressed an apprehension that the government might have selectively destroyed the documents sought by him.

... contd.

ALSO READ

'Top cop Pandey, now on run, plotted Ishrat encounter with IB man'

NIA nabs 2 Ajmer Sharif blast suspects in Vadodara

Youth shot, Amreli tense as groups clash

Deserted by husband just after marriage, Gujarat girl clears top UPSC exam