New Delhi, April 18 (IANS) A day after it gave four weeks' time to film star Sanjay Dutt to surrender to serve his remaining sentence in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast case, the Supreme Court Thursday also granted a similar respite to seven other convicts.
A bench of Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice B.S. Chauhan granted four weeks' time to seven convicts on the grounds of ill health and advanced age.
Those who were given the relief of four weeks to surrender were Zaibunisa Kazi, Ashrif Abdul Gafoor Parkar alias Dadabhai, Issaq Mohammad Hajwane, Altaf Ali Syed, Essa alias Anjum Abdul Razak Memon, Yusuf Mohsin Nulwala and K.C. Babu. However, the court denied similar relief to Yusuf Khan alias Kayum Kasam Khan.
Zaibunisa Kazi, 70, was granted four weeks' time on the grounds of her ailment as she is being treated for kidney cancer. In her earlier plea that was rejected by the apex court Tuesday, Kazi had pleaded that her sentence be kept in abeyance till her clemency petition was decided by the president.
Hajwane, 88, and Dadabhai, 76, had sought more time to surrender on the grounds of their advanced age. They too, like Kazi, had urged the court that enforcement of their sentence be kept on hold till their clemency petitions were dealt by the president.