Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, the most public face of the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings trial, will appear before the special TADA court here on Friday following a summons, but is unlikely to hear the final verdict for his two offences under the Arms Act.

Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam on Thursday indirectly confirmed that the TADA court is waiting for the report from a Probation Officer to decide on Sanjay’s fate. Besides Sanjay, a few more convicts have applied for relief under the Probation of Offenders Act (POA), under which a first time convict can be set free on basis of his past conduct and character. At the time of appointing the Probation Officers, whose names  have been kept strictly confidential.

The court had maintained a suspense whether a report was being sought for Sanjay Dutt.
Dutt has been summoned by the court to appear before it on the last working day of this week.
However, the special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told reporters that the court “has not received any report from the probation officer as yet”. He said the report will take some more time and therefore, the court’s decision on  Sanjay’s application is likely to be delayed.
“It is unlikely that the sentence for Dutt will be given tomorrow,” Mr Nikam said at the end of the day’s proceedings. Dutt has been convicted under two sections of the Arms Act.

Six sentenced
Earlier during the day, the TADA court sentenced six convicts,  including two aides of terror attack executor Tiger Memon, to jail terms ranging from five to 14 years, for their role in landing of deadly RDX explosives, arms and ammunition at the Raigad coast. The two aides were Sharif Parkar and Raju Jain.

Phanse’s son
Sharif Parkar’s son, Mujeeb, was sentenced to five years’ RI and ordered to pay a fine  of Rs 25,000.  
Sarfaraz, the son of one of the chief convicts Dawood Phanse was sentenced to nine years RI and a fine of Rs 25,000.
 Two drivers, Suleman Ghavte and Sayed Abdul Rehman Shaikh, who just drove the trucks laden with explosives without knowing it, on Thursday learnt that keeping silence was costly.

They were not involved in the conspiracy and one of them even  gave up the job with his employers after knowing the nature of the consignment, but none of them reported the matter to police.

The court sentenced them to seven years’ RI and ordered to pay fine of Rs 25,000 each. The court observed that, “if they had informed the police about this then none of the activities would have taken place”, the court said.