The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea of Yusuf Mohsin Nulwalla, a co-convict and close friend of Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt serving a five-year jail sentence for destroying an AK-56 rifle, to reduce his jail term claiming that the weapon was not an automatic one.
Mr. Nulwalla claimed that he was wrongly sentenced for the offence of possessing a prohibited weapon while the charge sheet had accused him of having a non-prohibited semi-automatic weapon.
“You are unnecessarily casting doubts without any proof,” a Bench of Justices S.A. Bobde and Ashok Bhushan orally observed while rejecting his plea.
Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Mr. Nulwalla, claimed that “a grave miscarriage of justice has taken place.”
He said a forensic report had shown that the firearm in question was a Chinese variant which was not prohibited.
To this, the Bench said AK-56 rifle was always considered a prohibited firearm. The court pointed out that when a curative petition had already been dismissed, it could not entertain the matter on a writ petition.
The apex court had upheld the conviction and the five-year sentence of Mr. Nulwalla.
