The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to suspend a 20-year jail sentence imposed on former Indian Police Service officer Sanjiv Bhatt in a 1996 drug planting case, Live Law reported.

Bhatt is already serving a life sentence in a separate 1990 custodial death case.

The drug planting matter was listed before a bench of Justices JK Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi.

Appearing for Bhatt, advocate Kapil Sibal submitted that his client had already served seven years and three months of the sentence.

The bench told him that Bhatt could instead seek an early hearing of the appeal, Live Law reported. Sibal, however, noted that Bhatt had already undergone over half his sentence.

The court said that the the quantity of drugs involved in the case, 5 kilograms, was high.

Sibal, however, sa

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