Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt will have to go to prison by May 16 to serve the sentence awarded to him in a case related to the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts as the Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a fresh plea by two film producers seeking more time for him to surrender.
Making it clear that the actor would not be given any more time to surrender, a bench of Justices B.S. Chauhan and Dipak Misra refused to hear the plea of the film producers who sought more time for him to surrender so that he could complete two under-production films in which crores of rupees have been invested. “We had already said that no application for extension of time will be entertained,” the bench said. Dutt was earlier granted four weeks additional time to surrender to undergo the jail term.
The top court had on March 21 upheld the conviction of 53-year-old Dutt in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case which it said was organised by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and others with the involvement of Pakistan’s ISI.
However, the top court had reduced to five years the six-year jail term awarded to him by a designated Tada court in 2006.
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Actor: threat to life, allow pune jail surrender
Age Correspondent
mumbai, May 14
Bollywood actor and convict in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case Sanjay Dutt on Tuesday urged a designated Tada court to permit him to surrender before Yerawada jail in Pune instead of submitting himself before the special court.
Judge G.A. Sanap, hearing the actor’s application, asked the CBI to file a reply and posted the hearing on Dutt’s plea for Wednesday. Public prosecutor Deepak Salvi appeared for the government and the CBI. Dutt filed the application in the Tada court, hours after the Supreme Court refused to grant Dutt additional time to surrender for undergoing the remaining 42 months’ jail term.
The top court was hearing a petition filed by a film producer, who sought time for Dutt to complete his under-production films. Dutt, convicted under the Arms Act and sentenced to five-year jail term, is supposed to surrender on May 16 before. On May 10, the top court had dismissed Dutt’s plea seeking review of its judgment.