Bollywood Baba flying on apex

Nov27:   The Apex Court on Tuesday granted bail to “Munna Bhai MBBS” who had been convicted in the1993 Mumbai blasts case. The actor had been awarded six years’ imprisonment under the Arms Act by the TADA Court in the case.

Along with Sanjay Dutt’s petition the Court also took up bail pleas of 9 others who have been convicted under TADA in the blast case. Samir Hingora, Rubina Suleman Memon, Yusuf Mohsin Nalllawala and Zaibunisa Anwar Qazi are some of the important personalities that were included in the bail list.

During the last hearing the Court had observed that it may consider granting bail to less serious offences. Ever since it was expecting that Dutt may get bail in the next hearing.

The Bollywood Baba has been granted bail eventually and will likely to be released by Wednesday after serving just 19 months of a six-year sentence for illegal possession of weapons, his attorney Satish Maneshinde said.

Presently Dutt is lodged in the Yerawada jail in Pune. He was earlier granted bail on August 20 this year by the SC but had to surrender after getting a copy by the TADA judgement.

The news of Sanjay Dutt’s release on bail has come as a huge relief to the producers of Bollywood projects like Mr Fraud, Kidnap and Easy Monthly Installment that were caught in the mid-way because of Dutt’s imprisonment.

Before being sentenced in the 1993 blasts case, Sanjay Dutt had started his own Production House. Earlier Dutt had been working with his long term friend Sanjay Gupta’s White Feather Films. “No one can imagine how happy I am,” says Dharam Oberoi, chief executive officer of Sanjay Dutt.

His next film Dus Kahaniya is expecting to be released on December 7.

The third part in the series of Dutt’s hit Munnabhai has also been planned, and the shooting is likely to begin soon.

Dutt was sentenced to six years in prison in July this year for possessing three automatic rifles AK 57 and a pistol that had been supplied to him by men subsequently convicted in the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people.

He was originally arrested on suspicion of involvement in the bombings that rocked Mumbai but eventually acquitted of terrorism and conspiracy charges.

Dutt has maintained he knew nothing about the bomb plot, claiming he got the guns to protect his family — his mother was Muslim, and his father, Hindu — after receiving threats during sectarian riots in Mumbai.

He served 18 months in jail immediately after his 1994 arrest, and has spent the past month in prison in the Yerawada jail of Pune. Between his two terms of long gap in prison he spent 12 years free on bail, when he starred in no less than half of the century of his acting career.