Cigarette smoking by actor-convict Sanjay Dutt, lodged at Yeravada prison here, does not violate the jail rules governing the inmates, according to prison sources on Monday.  Reacting to a media report that an activist had sought to know whether the actor was granted a concession to smoke in jail premises under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, officials clarified that all inmates were entitled to the facility.

“All items that are kept in the jail canteen can be consumed freely by the inmates, cigarette being one of them”, sources added. Meanwhile, a city-based human rights activist and lawyer Aseem Sarode, who recently met Mr Dutt, recommending to him a course in Gandhian philosophy, has objected to the statement by public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam that Bollywood’s support campaign for the actor was tantamount to contempt of court.

“Mr Nikam’s statement goes against Article 19 of the Constitution that guarantees right to freedom of expression”, he said.

Mr Dutt, sentenced to rigorous imprisonment of six years in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts trial, underwent a routine medical-check on Sunday. He was “fine” and had breakfast on Monday morning, sources said.

Sibal attacks Sorabjee
Even as Sanjay Dutt’s bail application is yet to be filed in Supreme Court, Science & Technology Minister Kapil Sibal on Monday joined issue with noted jurist Soli Sorabjee for criticising the public expression of support to the jailed actor by him, DHNS reports from New Delhi.

Mr Sibal, who said he was talking in his individual capacity as the former lawyer to Mr Dutt, said he had not commented on the merits of the case and was only saying that Congress should stand along side the family of Dutt considering that his father, the late Sunil Dutt, was a highly-respected leader of the party and his sister Priya Dutt is a party MP.

Interestingly, this was the third time that Mr Sibal said Congress should stand by Dutt’s family in its hour of crisis, a plea which was formally rejected by the AICC also for the third time saying that a political party could not take a stand on an individual’s case which was sub judice.

Criticising Mr Sorabjee’s comment that the public comments for support to Dutt should not signal that there was a “celebrity justice delivery system”, Mr Sibal accused the eminent jurist of not using the same yardsticks as the NDA government’s Attorney General when the Union Law Minister had pronounced BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and others not guilty in the Babri mosque demolition case even while the case was on.

He alleged that Mr Sorabjee’s “inner voice” had not spoken and his “moral streak and sense of righteousness” had not come out also during the Gujarat riot probe cases, including the Zaheera case, during which he was the Attorney General.