No connections with Dawood - Pleads Sanjay Dutt

Sanjay Dutt, who was arrested in 1993 for illegal possession of arms and had also imprisoned for the same was putting up an appeal at the Supreme Court Of India against the lower court verdict to have six year imprisonment for illegal possession of arms and his alleged terrorist links. The actor was accused of having relationship and friendship with the Don Dawood Ibrahim. 

Sanjay Dutt in a confession statement produced to the court by his counsel Harish Salve, mentioned that he had met Dawood once for a dinner party but otherwise, he has no relationships with the Dawood and the details produced were incorrect. 

Salve argued before a bench of Justices P Sathasivam and B S Chauhan that the trial in a TADA court robbed Sanjay of the common law benefits for an accused as the anti-terror law took confessional statements as eviden-ce without seeking corrob-orative material to prove the offence.

"This was a pure and simple act of panic which should have been tried under Arms Act," Salve said, clarifying that Sanjay had never claimed that he was never ever friendly with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, the alleged mastermind of the serial blasts.

"Sanjay had said he had attended a dinner at Dawood's place but had never claimed friendship with him. Sanjay's friends in the film industry used to boast of their friendship with (gangster) Tiger Memon." added Salve. The counsel also mentioned how Bollywood was linked with underworld during the dark era and Sanjay was just a victim of panic during the hours!

"Applying provisions of TADA to evaluate the confessional statements by co-accused robbed him of the opportunity to point out the inherent contradictions in them. Had common law principle of weighing evidence been applied to Sanjay's case, he would have been absolved of all charges," Salve said.

"That is because no trace of the AK-56 rifle was fou-nd on him. What was found on him was a pistol procured in September 1992 which at best could have been a minor offence under the Arms Act," he said.

Sanjay was convicted on July 31, 2007, for possessing a prohibited weapon in a case related to 1993 Mumbai blasts and was sentenced to six years' imprisonment. He has already undergone imprisonment for 16 months and was granted bail by the apex court on August 20, 2007.

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- Unknown Updated at: Wednesday, August 15, 2012