The Bombay High Court has refused to grant interim relief of release from jail sought by 1993 bomb blasts convict Ibrahim Moosa Chauhan, who is currently undergoing sentence for supplying weapons to actor Sanjay Dutt at his residence.
Chauhan had moved the High Court through lawyer Farhana Shah challenging cancellation of remission in the 10-year sentence awarded to him by a TADA court in Mumbai. Pending the final decision on his petition, he sought interim relief praying that he should be released from jail. A bench of Acting Chief Justice V K Tahilramani and Justice Shalini Phansalkar Joshi, while admitting the petition filed by Chauhan, posted it for further hearing on March 21.
However, the bench refused to grant interim relief. Ibrahim Moosa Chauhan alias Baba Chauhan was initially granted remission in his 10-year sentence on account of good conduct and was to be released from prison in November 2015.
However, his remission was cancelled by Inspector General (prisons) recently, says the petition. Aggrieved, he moved the high court. Dutt was sentenced to five years imprisonment by a TADA court and is due to be released from jail next month.
His jail term was reduced by 18 months on account of his good behaviour and work done by him in prison. The 56-year-old actor has already spent around three- and-a-half years in jail.
Chauhan pleaded he was similarly placed like Dutt and had displayed good behaviour in prison like the actor. He, therefore, should be given the same facility of remission on the lines of the remission granted to Dutt.
Chauhan’s petition said that he was assigned the work of gardening, cleaning toilets and water tanks in Nashik jail. He accumulated remission on account of good work and behaviour. It was only because of his good conduct that he was granted 80 days special remission. However, when he returned to jail after his parole expired on November 24, he was informed in a letter that his special remission had been cancelled, said Chauhan’s petition.
Chauhan claimed that this action was taken against him on the basis of a statement made by a prison inmate that he was not doing properly the work assigned to him in prison. He had pleaded that this order of cancelling his remission be set aside but it was not considered by the authorities.
According to prosecution in the 1993 bomb blast case, Chauhan had visited Dutt’s house along with gangster Abu Salem and others on January 15, 1993 and informed him that they would deliver weapons the next day.
Arms were delivered at Dutt’s house and taken away later, except an AK-47 rifle which was found in possession of the actor for which he was convicted.
Arms and ammunition were used in the serial blasts in which 257 people were killed and over 700 injured.
PTI