Maharashtra government to SC: We have no objection in sending Sanjay Dutt back to jail

Maharashtra government today at the Bombay High Court said that actor Sanjay Dutt should return to jail if he was allowed parole because of his VIP status. It was only last month that the Bombay High Court asked the state government to justify their decision to allow the 57-year-old actor to leave jail before he completed his five-year sentence. The ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ actor was freed eight months early from the jail owing to ‘good behaviour’.

During the hearing today, Bombay High Court judges asked the government to provide a new statement explaining their criteria of ‘good behaviour’, which was applied in actor’s case. Considering that Sanjay Dutt was given more than 100 days of parole, the court questioned, “How did the authorities assess that Dutt’s conduct was good? When did they get the time to make such assessment when he was out on parole half the time?”

Replying to the Public Interest Litigation filed, the state’s lawyer said, “If the rules were flouted in giving him parole or furlough, then the government has no objection in sending him back to jail.” It was in 2013 that the Supreme Court convicted Sanjay Dutt on the charges of acquiring illegal guns from the men convicted of the 1993 Mumbai serial bombings.