Initiating a parallel track move on behalf of cine workers involved in under-production films featuring Sanjay Dutt, a federal body of 22 craft associations of Bollywood, will petition President Pranab Mukherjee to give the actor six months’ reprieve to surrender so as to enable him to complete the shooting, pre and post- film production work.

The office-bearers of Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE), an apex body of 22 craft unions in the film industry, who met at the Kamalistan studio on Saturday afternoon, took a decision to this effect, after consulting Sanjay, who is shooting there for his under-production film Policegiri. 

“On behalf of the FWICE, we plan to send a petition to the Rashtrapat Bhavan tomorrow, urging the President to give Sanjay Dutt reprieve for six months to surrender so that he can complete all his pending work before he goes to jail. We are seeking this reprieve on behalf of cine craft employees who will be affected if six to seven films featuring Sanjay are not completed on time,” veteran actor Raza Murad The Pioneer said.          

“We respect the honourable Supreme Court’s verdict. We are neither seeking mercy nor pardon for Sanjay. All we intend to request the President is a reprieve or a temporary suspension of Sanjay’s sentence. He was given four weeks to surrender by the Supreme court, but it is physically impossible for him to finish all his assignments. That’s why we are requesting the President that he be allowed to surrender in six months,” Murad said.

The FWICE will make the petition seeking  a reprieve or suspension of sentence for Sanjay under Article 72 of the Constitution. “Under article 72 of the Constitution, the President has all the powers to commute a sentence, to grant mercy or pardon, to suspend a sentence or grant a reprieve. .... We are not asking for remission of his sentence. We will not ask for a lesser sentence. We will only request that instead of four weeks, Sanju be allowed to surrender after a few months once he completes the shooting, dubbing and post-production of all his films,” Murad said.

Murad is on the executive committee of Cine and Television Artistes’ Association (CINTAA) which is one of the 22 unions.

Sanjay is currently shooting for TP Agarwal’s Policegiri. He has also unfinished work in Rajkumar Hirani’s Peekay, Dharma Productions’ Ungli, Soham Shah-directed Sher, and Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Munnabhai squelk-III. “There are couple of other films for which Sanjay has to finish some work,” Murad said.

Meanwhile, in what is being seen as a lukewarm response to clemency plea for Sanjay Dutt, Maharashtra Governor K Sankaranarayanan on Saturday routinely forwarded  representations received from MP Jaya Prada and former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh seeking remission in sentence for Bollywood actor in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case, to the State Home department.