By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday refused permission to Samir Hingora, a Bollywood film producer who is convicted in the 1993 Mumbai serial terror bombing case, to go abroad.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan refused permission to Hingora, out on bail now, to go abroad. The bench said if he was so keen to go abroad, he should first spend the remaining term of his nine-year sentence in a prison.
The bench, which also included Justices Aftab Alam and J.M. Panchal, also doubted his intention to come back to India.
“What’s the guarantee that he would come back?” asked the bench, as Hingora’s counsel pleaded for permission to his client to visit Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Counsel asserted that he has property worth Rs.200 million in India and that would be enough of a guarantee that he returns to the country.
Counsel for the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) opposed Hingora’s plea.
As Hingora’s petition has also demanded release of his impounded passport, the bench adjourned the hearing on this part of his plea to July after the summer vacation of the court.
Hingora, who has already spent a little over five years in the Arthur Road jail in Mumbai, was granted bail by the apex court earlier.
He was awarded a nine-year jail term by a Mumbai anti-terror court of Special Judge P.D. Kode for supplying arms to Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt through gangster Abu salem on the orders of Anees Ibrahim, brother of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim.