Sanjay Dutt goes to court, arrest warrant cancelled

Mumbai April 17 (IANS) Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt here on Monday appeared before a court in response to an arrest warrant issued against him two days ago. The warrant was later cancelled by the court.

Dutt appeared briefly before the Andheri Court Magistrate C.V. Patil along with a team of lawyers to file his application on the reasons why he failed to attend the hearing previously. The process was initiated by Magistrate Patil during the hearings concerning a cheque bouncing case filed against Dutt by producer Shakeel Noorani in 2013. The court accepted Dutt s application and cancelled the arrest warrant. After the hearing Dutt quickly moved out of the court premises avoiding contact with the media. Noorani in his complaint has alleged that he had been threatened by gangsters to settle a financial dispute pertaining to a film for which Dutt had taken the signing amount but failed to honour further commitments of playing the lead role in Jaan Ki Baazi. Earlier Dutt was summoned to appear before court on February 7 but he skipped the date after which a bailable arrest warrant was issued on April 15 when too he remained absent. However Dutt s team late on Saturday night claimed that the situation arose due to a communication lapse with the legal team. We respect the urgency shown by the honourable court regarding our attendance/representation and we would take immediate measure to rectify the situation a spokesperson had said. --IANS qn/py/vt