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Synopsis

The Supreme Court today imposed costs of INR 3 lakhs on former IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt for repeatedly filing petitions in relation to the judge hearing a drug planting case against him.

A bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Rajesh Bindal has imposed said costs of ₹1 lakh each for the three pleas filed by Bhatt.

Applications were filed by Bhatt before the High Court challenging the trial court's decision to reject three applications earlier filed by him with respect to the conduct of the trial in the case registered against him under the NDPS Act.

After these applications were rejected by the High Court, he had approached the Supreme Court on multiple occassions.

In May, Supreme Court had rejected Bhatt's plea for recusal of a judge from hearing a matter concerning his conviction and sentence of life term in custodial death case, after finding that it was an attempt made with "mala fide" intention to indulge in "forum shopping" and "bench hunting".

A bench of Justices M R Shah and C T Ravikumar pointed out earlier the bench headed by one of the judges (Justice Shah) heard the special leave petition in a case relating to the very same FIR and filed by the very same petitioner and at that point of time, no such objection was raised and no such prayer was made. 

"Earlier, merely because some proceedings might have been heard by one of us before the High Court in connection with the present matter and/or proceedings and some observations might have been made against the petitioner on the delaying tactics, cannot be a ground to accede to the request made by the petitioner," the bench had said.

Case Title: Sanjiv Bhatt vs. State of Gujarat