The Supreme Court on Tuesday said sacked IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, who had sought a fresh probe into the 'role' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah in post-Godhra riots was in fact a tool in the hands of their "rival political parties, activists and other vested interest groups.

Noting that the apex courtappointed Special Investigation Team (SIT), headed by former CBI director RK Raghavan, had given a clean chit to Modi and other top leaders of the BJP and RSS after investigating similar charges made by Jakia Jafri, whose husband and former Con-gress MP Ehsan Jafri was killed by rioters, a bench headed by Chief Justice HL Dattu dismissed Bhatt's petition for making Shah and RSS ideologue S Gurumurthy party in the case.

It was double-whammy for Bhatt as the bench not only rejected his plea for probe by a SC-monitored SIT into a slew of "motivated" FIRs against him, but also lifted the stay of his trial in two cases relating to coercing a witness and hacking the then BJP-led government's email account.

Trashing Bhatt's claim that he was present at a meeting to discuss law and order situation during the riots at Modi's residence (then chief minister of Gujarat) and "was witness to what was happenhappening", the bench said: "The petitioner appears to have been brought to the scene at the fag end of the trial by the rival political parties, activists and other vested interest groups. An activist has filed an application for being impleaded as a respondent.

While the petitioner was in connivance and constant consultation with the adversary political party and vested interest groups, he has no explanation as to why he kept quiet for nine years as to the meeting held on February 27, 2002."

"The state government has placed on record e-mails sent and received by the petitioner which indicate that the petitioner has interacted with the deputy leader of the Gujarat Assembly, who belongs to rival political party. He has tried to influence amicus curiae and the three-member bench of this court by using media card and pressure groups. He was receiving packages and materials from the leader of rival political party in Gujarat," said the bench in its 76 page judgment. The solicitor general, assisted by additional solicitor general Maninder Singh, alleged that Bhatt was in constant touch with certain Congress leaders, activist Teesta Setalwad and top media professionals.

Though Bhatt had moved the Supreme Court against Narendra Modi four years ago, his fresh application requested addition of names of BJP president Amit Shah and S Gurumurthy as parties in his petition saying they were "part of the larger design to subvert the course of justice", both before the apex court and the trial court in the riot cases".

