He walked out a free man last fortnight after 15 months in fetters as the most famous victim of India's most infamous piece of legislation. But, this week, as Sanjay Dutt sojourns in Shirdi, far away from the pop of the flashbulbs, one question must be staring him in the face: is this the beginning of the end of his travails, or merely the end of the beginning?
Freedom had been so near--yet so far-for so long that the star-son of Congress MP Sunil Dutt couldn't believe his ears when the cellphone of his lawyer Satish Maneshinde crackled with the news that the Supreme Court had ordered his release on a personal bond of Rs 5 lakh and two sureties of like amount. "I'll believe it only when I reach home," he said even as the other accused hugged and congratulated him. The circumspection was in order. Just over a month ago, when it had seemed the long wait to go home was over--the CBI, the main prosecutor in the Bombay blasts case, had said it had no objection to Sanjay and 11 others being released on bail--judge J.N.Patel of the designated TADA court had shot down his application.
First arrested on April 19, 1993, (a month after the serial blasts in Bombay) for possession of illegal weapons in a notified area, Sanjay had been rearrested in July last year. Since then, it had been a long, seemingly hopeless quest for freedom. And an equally long saga of hiccups and slip-ups.
In the interim, TADA lapsed. Sanjay became a symbol of all that was wrong with it, but freedom was elusive. "We were all disappointed when the bail plea was rejected on September 11," said a lawyer for Sanjay. "Now that the ordeal is over, it feels very nice." But that's only half the battle won.
Forget Sanjay hearing the good news over a cellular phone; forget the frenzied crowds cheering his limousine-cavalcade all the way from Arthur Road; forget his TADA court-sanctioned biryani dates with girl friend Rhea; forget Bal Thackeray's tears in one eye and joy in the other on seeing justice being delivered...
Forget it all. As Sanjay Dutt savours 'real' freedom for the first time in a year-and-a half, he will wonder if he will emerge from the more tortuous blasts' trial as safely as he did this week. Will that verdict be as sweet as this Diwali gift?
For the moment, Sanjay is hedging his bets. "1 don't want to spoil it all by uttering something off the cuff," he said as he emerged freshly-shaven from the jail in his trademark jeans and white kurta. Between 10.30 am on October 16 when he first heard he was going to be allowed to go home and when he stepped out of the jail at 5.15 pm the next day, Sanjay had spent 30 harrowing hours in expectation.
A gaggle of filmi-types and hordes of reporters and TV crews jostling for a piece of the action were at hand to cover the 'historic' event. But what Sanjay (and the 11 co-accused) have tasted so far is just a release from an abominable piece of law in which jail was the rule and bail was the exception, until proved innocent.
The larger questions--which saw him being taken into custody in April 1993, when he rushed back from Mauritius following an urgent summons from his father Sunil Dutt--still remain.
Sanjay's aides are optimistic that he will emerge unsullied. They are convinced he was merely (and falsely) implicated for his father's refusal to back Sharad Pawar's claims for prime ministership in the early 1990s. Pawar consistently denied he had victimised Sanjay but sources close to Sunil Dutt say the very fact that the then chief minister's assurances and actions did not match gave the game away.
"He first said TADA wouldn't be applied in Sanjay's case. But he went ahead and did precisely that. He said the state wouldn't oppose the bail application. But he went ahead and did precisely that. Tell me, what else could be surmised from such actions?" asks one source.
These claims may not be clinching, based as they are on hearsay At best they may explain Pawar's curt comment on Sanjay's release. "Why should I react? It's not as if Mahatma Gandhi has been released," he was quoted as saying. But the charge remains that arms were found in a TADA-notified area. Sanjay aides say there is no evidence to prove possession of arms except his confession which they say was not flee and voluntary, and which he later retracted. Besides, they claim, the weapons were not found with him but in a fourth hand. As for the conspiracy charge, they laugh it off.
That may not be an appropriate response during the blasts trial. But legal eagles assisting Sanjay say they can pull it off. Moreover, now that the attempts to secure bail have borne fruit, they say they can concentrate on proving his innocence.
Sanjay managed to walk out a free man thanks largely to a dramatic change in the 'fact situation' over the past five months.
But to emerge smiling from the blasts trial, Sanjay will need more than just a change in the 'fact situation'. The trial is expected to take a minimum of three years. If Sanjay walks out a free man then, as he did this week, the hype and hoopla will be justified. Justice may have been delayed; it will not have been denied.
