NEW DELHI: With the deadline for surrendering to the police only three days away, Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt has now moved the Supreme Court asking for more time to surrender.
In contradiction to his earlier statement to the press, wherein the actor said that he would not seek pardon and surrender in the given time frame, Sanjay Dutt has now asked the Supreme Court for 6 months time to surrender because he wants to complete all his film projects before he surrenders. The matter is scheduled for a hearing tomorrow.
Currently, the actor is shooting for Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘P.K.’ in Mumbai and is also dubbing for T P Agarwal’s ‘Policegiri’. What remains is a shoot with Emraan Hashmi for Karan Johar’s ‘Unglee’, and dubbing for Apoorva Lakhia’s ‘Zanjeer’.
Sanjay Dutt’s conviction under the Arms Act in the 1993 Bombay blasts case was upheld by the Supreme Court on March 21, 2013 and was given four weeks to surrender. Having served around 1.5 years in jail already, Sanjay was to serve the remainder of the 3.5 years of his 5-year sentence.
However, with state and special remissions, Sanjay’s jail time could come down to 2 years 9 months. “For every month that Dutt spends in jail, he is eligible for ordinary remission of seven days credited to his prison term every month and 30 additional days as annual good conduct remissions-a total of 114 days every year,” advocate Arfan Sait has explained.
“I have the highest respect for Supreme Court’s terms and conditions put on me. I want to thank whoever supported us during the ordeal,” Sanjay Dutt had said in his earlier statement. But since then, support has come in from several quarters, and most prominently from Justice Markandey Katju, the chairman of the Press Council of India. Justice Katju wrote a letter to President Pranab Mukherjee seeking pardon for Sanjay Dutt under Article 72 of the Constitution.
Apart from Justice Katju’s petition, the Maharashtra Governor, K Sankaranarayanan, has reportedly received close to 60 petitions from several people and organisations, both for and against clemency for Sanjay Dutt.
