Court to decide on Sanjay Dutt's Pune jail surrender plea

A designated TADA court will today decide on a plea filed by Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt in which he has sought that he be allowed to surrender before Yerwada jail in Pune instead of giving himself up before the special court in south Mumbai.

Dutt has to surrender by May 16 and undergo the remaining 42 months jail term in the arms case related to 1993 Mumbai blasts. Judge GA Sanap asked the prosecuting agency CBI to file a reply and posted the matter for today.

Dutt had filed the application in the TADA court on Tuesday hours after the Supreme Court refused to grant him additional time to surrender.

The apex court on Friday also rejected Dutt's plea seeking review its March 21 judgement upholding his conviction under the Arms Act and sentencing him to five years in jail in the arms case, saying there is no merit in it.

A day before the deadline for his surrender ended, the apex court had on April 17 granted Dutt, 53, four weeks time to surrender before jail authorities to undergo 42 months remaining sentence in the case.

The apex court, which had upheld the death sentence of Yakub Abdul Razak Memon, a key conspirator with Dawood Ibrahim in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, ordered that Dutt return to jail to serve three-and-a-half years sentence for possessing illegal arms.

A total of 257 persons were killed and 713 others injured when a series 13 coordinated explosions shattered the metropolis on March 12, 1993.

The blasts occurred at 12 places, including Bombay Stock Exchange building, Air-India Building at Nariman Point, at Worli opposite Century Bazaar, Hotels Sea Rock and Juhu Centaur.