JOIN USActor Sanjay Dutt on Monday sought six months’ time from the Supreme Court for returning to jail to serve the remaining tenure of his sentence in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.
In a criminal miscellaneous application, the 53-year-old actor urged the court to grant him time to honour his professional commitments. Dutt claimed that he would require about 196 days to complete shooting for films, in which Rs 278 crore was at stake.
A bench of justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan on March 21 awarded Dutt five-year imprisonment for possessing illegal arms and directed him to surrender within four weeks. Dutt has already spent 18 months in jail during pendency of the trial.
Dutt said he has to finish shooting for “Policegiri,” “Zanjeer,” “Vasooli” and “Dwand.” He also claimed to have donated a lot of money for social causes like ensuring the wellbeing of cancer patients and children, who were likely to suffer due to his incarceration.
“This court may extend the time to surrender in terms of order dated March 21, 2013, by a period of six months upon an undertaking of the petitioner to surrender on expiry of the extended period and upon such terms and conditions as this court may deem fit and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case,” stated the application, which is likely to come up for hearing on Tuesday.
Dutt also clarified that the application was “based entirely on humanitarian grounds” as
it sought to invoke extraordinary jurisdiction of the apex court under Article 142 of the Constitution. “Unless the prayer of the petitioner is granted, he and others would suffer serious loss and prejudice and livelihood of several families would be affected,” the application claimed.
Meanwhile, Zaibunnisa Anwar Kazi and two others, also held guilty under the Arms Act and awarded similar punishment, approached the apex court seeking suspension of their sentences on the ground that the President was yet to decide on their mercy petitions.
They wanted temporary exemption from surrendering before the trial court for serving the jail term. Senior advocate F S Nariman, appearing for Kazi, mentioned the petition before the three-judge bench presided over by Chief Justice Altamas Kabir.
The bench directed for its listing on Tuesday.
“Since the procedure established by law under Article 21 of the Constitution does not end with the final judgment of the highest court but also extends into the domain of exercise of Presidential power under Article 72 and since such power has been duly invoked, the order of this court be suspended until the decision by the President on the petition filed before him on March 28 and now pending,” stated the petition filed by Kazi.
In her plea, Kazi submitted that she was 70 and suffering from swelling in her legs which require regular medical screening and personal care.
She also claimed to have been operated for tumor in her kidney in January 2011.