Actor Sanjay Dutt, who was sentenced to six years rigorous imprisonment for possession of prohibited arms, is likely to appeal against the judgment of the special TADA court by the end of this week. Even then, Dutt is likely to spend several weeks in jail, as his lawyers are yet to get a full copy of Judge P D Kode's reasoned judgement — a requirement for filing any appeal in a higher court. Dutt's defence team is tightlipped about the grounds of the appeal. "We are working on it. The appeal is likely to be filed by the end of the week," said his lawyer Karan Singh. "We are definitely challenging the judgment," he added.The issue that all the 100 convicts of the 1993 Mumbai blasts case — including Dutt — will have to come to terms with now is that Kode is likely to take over a month to finish dictating the judgement.While Dutt is supposed to get his copy of the judgement on August 27, there are others who have been given dates two months from the date of their sentencing. The Memons, who were sentenced on July 27, have been given September 26 as the date of collecting their judgment. "After we file the appeal, it would at least take a couple of days to come on board," said advocate Satish Maneshinde, part of Dutt’s defence team. Zaibunnisa Kadri, who was also convicted and sentenced under TADA for possessing prohibited arms, had filed an appeal in the apex court about a week back. "The court registrar was not ready to take it on board without the reasoned judgement copy. We then made a motion and mentioned it before the Chief Justice. The court issued a notice returnable in three weeks," said Kadri’s lawyer, Rizwan Merchant. This is indicative of the time the whole process may take. During this time, Dutt may have to shift out of the Arthur Road jail as it is primarily meant for undertrials and not for those who have been sentenced to rigorous imprisonment. A decision on this will be taken on Thursday after the jail superintendent files her reply in the TADA court.
