Mumbai,
The Bombay High Court today said it had not found any violation on part of the state government in allowing actor Sanjay Dutt to walk out of jail eight months before the completion of his five-year sentence in the 1993 serial bomb blasts case.
A bench of Justice SC Dharamadhikari and Bharati Dangre observed that the state had succeeded in backing its claims of impartiality in the case with valid documents from the Home Department. The court, thus, disposed of a PIL challenging the remission of Dutt’s sentence, and the “frequent parole and furlough” leaves granted to him while he was serving his sentence in the Yerwada prison in Pune.
“We found nothing contrary in the records submitted by the state Home Department and the explanation offered by the state. No violations or abuse of discretionary powers were detected,” the bench said.
The court, however, said the state must devise a scheme to ensure that all applications made by convicts for parole and furlough henceforth, are decided upon expeditiously and in a transparent manner.
