Sanjay dutt’s lawyers seek probation officers for reporting on him
Bollywood star Sanjay Dutt’s lawyers today asked a TADA court to appoint probation officers to make a report on the actor’s conduct, home surroundings and circumstances as it would help the judge in deciding on his application for release under the Probation of Offenders Act.
Dutt was convicted last year under the Arms Act in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case for illegally possessing an AK-56 rifle and a 9mm pistol. The court has the discretion to appoint a probation officer and obtain a report before deciding on an application under the Act.
On February 23, Dutt’s lawyers will move a written application for appointment of probation officers. The officers could be a state-appointed, or, in special circumstances, the court could appoint any person as a probation officer.
Earlier, Sanjay’s lawyer V R Manohar stressed in his arguments in the court of Judge P D Kode that the actor came to know absconding gangster Anees Ibrahim through producer Firoze Khan during the shooting of “Yalgar” in Dubai in the early 1990s.
The prosecution had earlier highlighted Dutt’s association with criminals like Anees.
Manohar also pointed out Dutt never asked for a Ak-56 rifle but, seeing his apprehension, Hanif Kadawala and Sameer Hingora — his producers — offered to get him an automatic weapon. Dutt feared an attack by Hindu groups as his father, late Sunil Dutt, was involved in relief work in riot-affected Muslim areas, according to the actor’s confession.
Even when Dutt was given an AK-56, he never intended to keep it for long and asked Kadawala to take it back as soon as the communal violence subsided in 1993, Manohar said, relying on the actor’s confession recorded soon after his arrest.
— PTI
Leave a Reply