1993 Mumbai Blasts: India’s Supreme Court Rejects Bollywood Star Sanjay Dutt’s Review Petition

India’s Supreme Court on Friday rejected a petition filed by popular Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, seeking a review of the court’s verdict on his conviction in connection with the 1993 Mumbai bomb blast case.

A bench of Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan, which had delivered the verdict on March 21, refused to review the judgment on Dutt's plea, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

The terror attack that occurred on Mar. 12, 1993, was one of the deadliest in India’s history. It killed 257 people when 13 explosions ripped through India’s financial capital and rocked the Bombay Stock Exchange, the Air India Building, the headquarters of regional Hindu nationalist party Shiv Sena and the Katha bazaar, among other key locations.

The blasts also left more than 700 people injured and inflicted a property loss of more than Rs 27 crore ($5 million).

Dutt, the son of renowned Bollywood actors, was convicted in 2006 of buying weapons from bombers.

Dutt is scheduled to surrender on May 15, IBN-Live reported, although he has got an option of getting relief from the court by filing a curative petition.

The court also rejected similar pleas filed by six other convicts — Yusuf Mohsin Nulwalla, Khalil Ahmed Sayed Ali Nazir, Mohamed Dawood Yusuf Khan, Shaikh Asif Yusuf, Muzammil Umar Kadri and Mohd Ahmed Shaikh who were also sentenced in the case.

Dutt has been out on bail since 2007 after spending 18 months in jail. In March, the apex court ordered him back to prison, with his original six-year sentence reduced to five.

He will have to spend another three years and six months in prison to complete his term.

Dutt had argued that the weapons were necessary in order to defend his family during the Hindu-Muslim riots of 1993, which had followed the destruction of the Babri mosque in the northern town of Ayodhya by Hindu fundamentalists.

The Mumbai blasts were an alleged retaliation executed by the city's Muslim-dominated underworld.