Sanjay: Fortnight’s breather

Sept. 26: Sanjay Dutt will be a free man for at least another fortnight.

The Mumbai anti-terror court that sentenced him in the 1993 serial blasts case will take over two weeks to hand the actor a certified copy of the judgment.

Judge Pramod Kode has asked Sanjay to be present in the court, on the Arthur Road jail premises, on Thursday.

“It will take another 15 to 20 days for all the verdicts to be drafted. Once that is done, the convicts and their lawyers will be asked to collect their copies,” a court official said.

Like the rest, Sanjay is likely to be given a date when he can take his copy.

The Supreme Court, which granted the actor interim bail last month, had asked him to surrender the day he is given the copy. But today, the apex court frowned on the practice of handing out the copies “days and months after the verdicts were delivered”.

A three-judge bench of Justices B.N. Aggarwal, P.P. Naolekar and D.K. Jain said as only a small part of the verdicts were read out, it was important for courts to hand out the copies as soon as possible to allow appeals.

The issue of delays came into focus when a lawyer sought to list his case before the apex court without furnishing the mandatory copy of the judgment, delivered by Bombay High Court.

The judges rapped the high court for the delay. “Even Bombay High Court is taking two months to give copies…. Many courts are giving copies two months after a judgment,” the bench observed.

Employees of the anti- terror court in Mumbai have been working overtime to compile the verdicts, which run into several thousand pages, for the 100 convicts. Court sources said October 15 could be the fresh date for delivering the copies.

After Sanjay’s interim bail, several others, including three members of the Memon family, got relief on the same ground. They are also likely to get more time with their families.