Gujarat AAG accuses IPS officer Bhatt of hacking e-mails -Governance Now

Gujarat AAG accuses IPS officer Bhatt of hacking e-mails

IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt, in his affidavit to Supreme Court, had stated that someone from within the SIT was leaking sensitive and confidential details related to investigations conducted by the SIT to Tushar Mehta

PTI | August 8, 2011

Gujarat's Additional Advocate General Tushar Mehta has lodged a complaint with the state cyber cell accusing IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt of hacking his e-mails, police said.

"A case has been registered against IPS officer Sanjeev Bhatt after a complaint was lodged against him by the Additional Advocate General of Gujarat High Court accusing him of hacking his e-mails," Joint Commissioner of Police of sector-I Ajay Tomar said.

"An FIR has been registered (under the Information Technology Act-2008) at the Vastrapur police station, and investigations are underway," another police official said. Incidentally, Bhatt and Mehta have been family friends since long.

Bhatt, in his affidavit to the Supreme Court, had stated that someone from within the Special Investigation Team (SIT) was leaking sensitive and confidential details related to investigations conducted by the SIT to Tushar Mehta.

Bhatt claimed in the affidavit that he had seen e-mails from the SIT probing the riots cases in the personal mail account of Mehta. Mehta, in reply has alleged that Bhatt hacked his e-mail and accessed it and passed on the information to others also.

"These communications contain my personal, official, and legal correspondences which are not only unauthorisedly seen by Bhatt but shared by him with others for ulterior motive, which, apart from being criminal offences, grossly violates my right of privacy," Mehta said in the complaint.

"I have reasons to believe that he must have taken hard and soft copies of my emails and he is using the same out of contact for an ulterior motive and with an intention of tarnishing my reputation," he said.

"I have never given Bhatt my password and never authorised him to see my emails. Without my permission he has accessed my emails, passwords and has altered, compromised and tempered my mail accounts committing gross violation of law," he alleged.

Bhatt had earlier filed a petition in the Supreme Court accusing Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi of misusing the state machinery against Muslims during post the 2002 Godhra riots.

The IPS officer, in his affidavit, said from September 2009 onwards, he was time and again required to access the e-mail account of Mehta and came across several e-mail exchanges that were clearly indicative of an "unholy nexus and illegal complicity between high functionaries of Gujarat and other extraneous political entities."

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