Sanjiv Bhatt gets last-minute reprieve from Supreme Court

AHMEDABAD: Former IPS officer

Sanjiv Bhatt

on Wednesday got a reprieve from the Supreme Court at the last possible moment, averting the demolition of the allegedly illegal construction near his bungalow in Sushilnagar Cooperative Society on Drive-in Road.


While a division bench of

Gujarat high court

rejected the appeal of Bhatt’s wife, Shweta Bhatt, against an

Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation

(AMC) demolition order at 11am on Wednesday, the AMC demolition party was at Bhatt’s house by noon.

Bhatt’s advocate in the Supreme Court, Harin Raval, immediately moved the SC and put the case before the bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi, R Banumathi and Navin Sinha. He requested the court’s intervention and submitted that the civic body sent the demolition team at noon to pull down the construction and work was about to begin even though a copy of the HC order was not made available.

After hearing the senior advocate, the bench said that the HC order has opened the possibility of demolition of Bhatt’s residential premises. The SC stayed the authorities from any demolition on the basis of the high court order till July 30. It permitted Bhatt to file a petition in proper form on this issue by July 30, said Bhatt’s advocate here, Jeet Bhatt.

Shweta Bhatt approached a division bench two weeks ago after a single-judge bench ordered AMC to implement its decision to pull down alleged illegal construction in the margin area of his bungalow. A deputy town planning officer in 2016 passed an order to demolish the construction. The HC also ordered police to assist the civic body in the demolition. Bhatt took exception to this direction as well.

One of Bhatt’s neighbours, Pravin Patel, moved the HC in 2012, seeking directions to the AMC to demolish the construction put up by the Bhatts in the margin space. On the court’s order to take a decision on Patel’s complaint, the civic body issued notice in June 2016 for demolition of the alleged illegal construction.