I continue to be amazed at the emotional outpouring over Sanjay Dutt's sentencing... For days, a starved media ran feverish campaigns collecting the opinion of the man and woman on the street about whether Sanju baba (Baba?!) was a criminal/terrorist or not. And quintessentially, many a man and woman on the street offered that he was not... how could he after spouting all the Gandhian wisdom in a movie and after all the good that happened in the world after the movie was released.
So, said one of the teens into a mike thrust in his face, ``In my view, he should be forgiven.'' Thank god the judiciary is not yet governed by arbit mush but the law as laid out in black and white. It's a different matter that the law of the land does not apply uniformly for all. When Sanjubaba was imprisoned as an undertrial over a decade ago, he was suitably lodged in the JJ hospital's ICU after he complained of chest pain or some such. (I forget the details now). When he continued to enjoy his stay in the air-conditioned and private comforts of the ICU without reason, a good-willed doctor brought it to my notice and got me his case papers which said the man was fit.
I wrote about it in the daily, `The Independent,' where I worked back then. The then TADA judge, J N Patel, took cognisance of the piece and ordered that Sanjubaba be shofted to the general ward IF necessary instead of depriving a needy patient.
If I recall right, the actor stayed in the general ward for long thereafter without reason and mostly remained ``under observation.''

Take his sentence. Mumbai Mirror has rendered a sterling service to Mumbaikind by highlighting how two other accused in similar circumstances have been convicted under TADA but not Dutt. Why would a court, following the thumb rule of law, follow two different sets of parameters for similar cases?