NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court yesterday reserved its verdict on Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt’s plea for suspension of his conviction in a criminal case to enable him fight the general elections.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice R.M. Lodha reserved the verdict amid strong opposition from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and various civil society groups to Sanjay’s plea for suspension of his conviction for possessing illegal arms in the run-up to the March 1993 serial bombings in Mumbai.
Sanjay, sentenced to six years in jail by a Mumbai anti-terror court, moved the court early this month seeking parity with cricketer-turned-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) parliamentarian Navjot Singh Sidhu, whose conviction in a case of unintentional killing was stayed by the apex court in 2007 to enable him contest elections.
As per electoral laws, a person convicted for a criminal offense and sentenced to jail for more than two years is barred from running for elections.
The Samajwadi Party wants to field Sanjay from the Lucknow constituency, and he had already started campaigning there. The apex court is likely to pronounce its judgment in a day or two.
The bench reserved its verdict after hearing a two-hour-long argument from various sides, including those of senior counsel Harish Salve, who made a strong case for suspending Sanjay’s conviction.
But the hearing took a dramatic turn toward its fag end when several civil society groups, represented by several senior counsels like former Attorney General of India Soli J. Sorabjee, former Additional Solicitor General K.T.S. Tulsi and senior counsel Prashant Bhushan, put up a stiff resistance to Sanjay’s plea.
Appearing for the CBI, Additional Solicitor General Gopal Subramaniam too opposed Sanjay’s plea arguing that various relevant laws do not empower the court to suspend the conviction of a criminal.
The courts, at most, can suspend the sentence, entailing the conviction, and not the conviction per se, which could only be set aside by a court only after detailed examination of the evidence against the accused, Subramaniam said.
