The Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear former Indian Police Service officer Sanjiv Bhatt’s plea seeking security for his family. The top court asked him to move the Gujarat High Court with his plea instead.

The court had, in October 2018, refused to hear a plea submitted by the former officer’s wife against a police investigation and his judicial custody in a 1996 case in which he was accused of planting banned drugs on an advocate to arrest him.

The court had asked Shweta Bhatt to approach an “appropriate forum” for relief. The bench had said it would not intervene in an ongoing investigation.

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Shweta Bhatt had unsuccessfully contested the 2012 Assembly election in the state as a Congress candidate against Modi.

In July 2018, the top court had rejected a plea submitted by Bhatt’s wife against the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation’s move to demolish part of their house.

Bhatt’s allegations in the Godhra riots case

In April 2011, Bhatt had moved the Supreme Court against Modi and accused him of encouraging the Godhra riots that left 1,000 people dead, most of them Muslims. Bhatt claimed that he had attended a meeting at Modi’s residence on February 27, 2002, at which the chief minister allegedly told his officers to “allow Hindus to vent their anger”.

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Bhatt’s allegations were refuted by the Special Investigation Team that was tasked with the inquiry as the testimonies of the other people in the room did not corroborate with his account.

Bhatt was suspended soon after he made the claims and was sacked in 2015. His department cited several reasons for his dismissal, including various counts of indiscipline such as staying absent from duty without permission and defying the orders of superior officers.

Bhatt had denied the charges against him. “This so-called ‘unauthorised absence from duty’ pertains to the period when I was deposing before the SIT and the Nanavati Commission inquiring into the Gujarat riots,” he had said.