Attended Dawood's party, but no nexus, Sanjay Dutt tells SC

New Delhi: Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt on Tuesday told Supreme Court that he had attended a dinner hosted by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim in Dubai before the 1993 blasts in Mumbai but denied any relationship with him.

"I have only attended a dinner at Dawood's house along with two film producers which was before the blast. Other than that I do not have any relationship," senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for the star, told a bench of Justice P Sathasivam and Justice B S Chauhan hearing the appeal against his conviction and six years imprisonment.

Salve made the submission in response to queries from the bench as to whether Dutt had attended a party hosted by Dawood as stated in his alleged confessional statement.

The actor said that though he\'d attended a dinner hosted by Dawood before the \'93 blasts, he didn\'t have any relation with him.

To queries from the bench, the counsel asserted that Dutt had no relationship either with Dawood or the other alleged main conspirator Tiger Memon.

"I have no relationship with Tiger Memon. I have no friendship with Dawood Ibrahim," he said.

The bench asked him, "Do you mean to say your relationship with Dawood Ibrahim is only in relationship to the shooting of the movie," to which the counsel answered in the affirmative.

The apex court had on November 1, 2011 commenced final hearing on a bunch of appeals filed by convicts as well as CBI in the 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts case in which 12 persons were awarded death penalty and 78 others sentenced to varying terms ranging from three years to life imprisonment.

CBI, however, has chosen not to appeal against Dutt who was acquitted of the charge of conspiracy in the blasts under the dreaded TADA, but was awarded six years imprisonment by a designated court for being in illegal possession of arms under the Arms Act.

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