Best Bakery's Zahira Sheikh released

Nashik, Mar 14 (UNI) Gujarat infamous Best Bakery case flip-flop prime witness Zahira Sheikh was today released from the Nashik jail after completing her one-year sentence for contempt of court.

Jail official Ashok Rane confirmed her release.

Zahira completed her sentence on March 9 but her release was deferred on account of delay in delivering the Supreme Court's order waiving a fine of Rs 50,000 on her to the jail authorities. Earlier, the jail officials had declined to entertain fax copy of the waiver order, accordinig to her lawyer Umesh Deshpande.

On March 8, 2006, a Supreme Court bench consisting of Justices Arijit Pasayat and H K Sema had found Zahira Sheikh guilty of turning hostile and sentenced her to one year's imprisonment, after a high level committee appointed by the court verified the statements made by her before and after she turned hostile. The committee, in its report, had indicted her as a ''self-condemned liar''.

Severly reprimanded for her flip-flops during the trial, Zahira was also slapped with a fine of Rs 50,000, to be paid in two months.

If she defaulted in paying the fine, she was required to undergo another year of imprisonment.

However, later in her application before the Supreme Court, she prayed for reducing the sentence to the period of imprisonment she had already undergone and also to exempt her from paying the fine as she had no means to pay it.

Further, Zahira had submitted that on the day of riots in Gujarat on March 1, 2002 she was a minor(16 years) and a month earlier her father had died, leaving five children of tender age. On March 2, she lost her elder brother Nafitullah due to kidney failure and lack of medical aid. Her family was on the verge of starvation.

Finally, the Supreme Court on March 7, 2007, exactly a year after sentencing her, waived the fine and in its order said, '' Considering the peculiar circumstance of the case, the direction for payment of costs is waived''.

UNI