Actor Sanjay Dutt on Thursday approached the Supreme Court seeking suspension of his conviction in connection with the 1993 Mumbai blasts to contest the Lok Sabha polls. Dutt has recently joined the Samajwadi Party and is its candidate from the Lucknow seat. He moved the court seeking parity with cricketer-turned-BJP MP Navjot Singh Sidhu,whose conviction in a case of unintentional killing was stayed by the apex court in 2007. This had enabled Sidhu to fight elections. Dutts plea is slated to be heard on Friday,said his advocate,Gaurav Bhatia. The actor was convicted and sentenced to six years imprisonment under the Arms Act. Anyone convicted for a criminal offence and sentenced to jail for more than two years is barred from contesting polls. While Dutt was held guilty under the Arms Act,he was acquitted of the more serious offence under the TADA. He was sentenced in July 2007,and had spent 18 months in jail. While granting him bail on November 27,2007,the Bench,headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan,had directed him to surrender his passport and asked him not to leave the country without the courts permission. Dutt has pleaded that he has no criminal antecedents and has been acquitted of terror charges by the Mumbai court. On Wednesday,the court had dismissed a similar plea by underworld don Babloo Srivastava,who had moved the apex court last month for suspension of his conviction.
