Yerawada Jail frowns at home food for Sanjay Dutt

Spelling fresh trouble for Sanjay Dutt, the Yerawada Central Jail here has decided to oppose home-cooked food permitted to the Bollywood actor, official sources said here Monday.

The jail authorites have filed a petition in the Special TADA Court in Mumbai seeking to discontinue the home-cooked food services for Dutt, currently serving his sentence in the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.

The official said the prison has invoked the jail manual, which has a provision of serving home-cooked food only to undertrials on medical grounds.

For all other prisoners who are medically fit, the manual states that only jail food shall be served to them.

"Sanjay Dutt is a convict undergoing his sentence. He is not entitled to the privilege (of getting home food)," the official said on the condition of anonymity.

The development took place barely 10 days after Dutt surrendered before the Mumbai Special TADA Court May 16 after the Supreme Court upheld his conviction in the 1993 serial blasts case.

At the time, Dutt had requested the Special TADA Court for facilities like getting home-cooked food, medicines, clothes, mattress and permission to smoke electronic cigarettes.

However, the court permitted him home food and medicines for a month, and nothing else at the Arthur Road Central Jail in Mumbai where he was lodged.

Later, last Wednesday (May 22), in an early morning operation, Dutt was secretly moved to Yerawada Central Jail in Pune, where he is lodged in a separate cell in view of security concerns.