Sanjay Dutt in a poster of Life Ho Toh Aisi

Calcutta, Dec. 14: Before Munnabhai Meets Mahatma Gandhi, his past meetings may catch up with him and that ain’t good news for a film industry already troubled by speeding and shooting stars.

Sanjay Dutt may have been summoned to court just once since Abu Salem’s extradition to India but that’s already causing a flutter in Bollywood.

For the man who once named Salem as the person to have supplied him arms, only to retract his confession later, Dutt’s uncertain future is a tad too scary at every level in tinsel town ? from production to distribution to exhibition. And with innocuous TV reports claiming that Salem has named Dutt during one of the grilling sessions, not many are ready to put their money on Sanju baba again.

Naturally then, the heat is on. “Yes, there is a sudden rush to release all the ready Sanjay Dutt movies,” reveals Prashant Srivastava, vice-president of 89 Cinemas (Swabhumi).

“The makers aren’t taking any chances and trying to get his ready-for-release movies out of the way as soon as possible.”

So, while Mahesh Manjrekar’s Vaah! Life Ho Toh Aisi comes on December 30, Sanjay Gupta’s Zinda dashes to the theatres on January 13.

Dutt’s other ready-for-release film, Anubhav Sinha’s Tathastu, is also looking at a January date with the big screen.

Says distributor Pritam Jalan, who’s handling Zinda in Calcutta: “We have got a letter from the producers asking us to release the film in the second week of January. Although stars getting involved in judicial matters shouldn’t affect the audiences coming in to the theatres, we are ready to release the movie even earlier if the need so arises.”

Post-Tathastu, Dutt has two Vidhu Vinod Chopra films ? Munnabhai Meets Mahatma Gandhi (sequel to Munnabhai MBBS) and Eklavya ? The Royal Guard.

The problems do not end there for Dutt, who lost his father, actor-politician Sunil Dutt, this year and then successfully campaigned for sister Priya in recent weeks.

Dutt has already signed a series of films with big names like David Dhawan, Abbas-Mastan and Indra Kumar and with big banners like UTV, Shree Ashtavinayak and Applause Entertainment. So, if he again gets entangled in the 1993 Bombay blasts case, these films are sure to feel the brunt.

“In 1993, when Sanjay Dutt got arrested under Tada (anti-terror law) and was in prison for months, Subhash Ghai’s Khalnayak had become a big hit. Everyone remembers that.

“What they do not take into account is that incomplete films like Mahaanta (co-starring Madhuri Dixit) and Safari (co-starring Juhi Chawla) got delayed by years and when they finally did release, they bombed badly,” says Mumbai-based trade analyst Taran Adarsh.