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Apex court notice to CBI on Dutt’s bail plea

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday ordered notice to the Central Bureau of Investigation on actor Sanjay Dutt’s application, seeking bail in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case in which he was sentenced to six-year imprisonment by a TADA court.

In August, the apex court granted him interim bail until he was given a copy of the November 2006 judgment convicting him on condition that he surrender himself on receiving it. Accordingly, he surrendered to the court and filed this appeal.

A Bench consisting of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justice R.V. Raveendran, after hearing senior counsel V.R. Manohar for the petitioner and Additional Solicitor-General Gopal Subramaniam for the CBI, asked the agency to file its response in two weeks and posted the matter for November 20.

In the criminal appeal against the order of the TADA court special judge, Sanjay Dutt said the prosecution case was that he was in possession of an illegal weapon from January 16, 1993 to April 12, 1993 (in the notified area under the TADA Act) and also of a 9 mm pistol from September 1992. But no arm or ammunition was ever recovered from him or his residence or at his instance.

Sanjay Dutt said the TADA judge acquitted him of any involvement in the conspiracy in the case and convicted him only of an offence under the Arms Act, and hence the rigorous conditions for grant of bail would not apply to him. During the pendency of trial he had been on bail for over 12 years and he abided by all bail conditions. He travelled abroad on more than 50 occasions and every time he returned and surrendered to the jurisdiction of the trial court. Sanjay Dutt prayed for quashing the impugned judgment and to release him on bail until the criminal appeal was disposed of.

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