The Supreme Court today sought the Gujarat government's response on suspended IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt's plea for quashing a criminal case lodged against him for allegedly hacking the state's Additional Advocate General Tushar Mehta's e-mail account.

Bhatt has sought quashing of the First Information Report in the case against him, refuting all the allegations leveled in it and asserting that the state was harassing him.

A bench of justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana Prakash Desai issued notice to the Gujarat government on Bhatt's plea, seeking its response by the next date of hearing. Bhatt also made an alternative plea for the transfer of the case to the CBI for an independent probe into it.

The state police had filed an FIR against Bhatt on August 5 on a complaint by Mehta alleging that Bhatt had hacked his e-mail account and had passed on the information to others.

The Gujarat Police had later transferred the case to the Cyber Cell of its Crime Branch.