Until his conviction, Dutt was regarded as Bollywood royalty. He was a child actor and the son of one of the country's best-loved acting couples, Sunil and Nargis Dutt. He has specialised in realistic character portrayals of gangsters and policemen, but his starring role in the film "Lage Raho Munna Bhai," in which he plays a gangster who finds an epiphany in the image of Mahatma Gandhi and begins a new life of good works, turned him into a Bollywood icon. His lawyer Satish Maneshinde said Dutt, 53, will "abide by the apex court's order of undergoing the sentence of three and a half years in letter and spirit." His sister, Priya Dutt, a Congress Party leader and MP, declined to comment on the ruling and left the court visibly upset. His case was heard by a bench which also confirmed the death sentence for Yakub Memon, the brother of "Tiger Memon," another suspected mastermind behind the explosions. The court commuted the death sentences of ten other plotters to life imprisonment. Vani Tripathi, national secretary of the Hindu nationalist opposition Bharatiya Janata Party and also an actress who appeared with Dutt in the 1998 Bollywood hit "Dushman," said she was personally sad at the ruling but there could be no exceptions for celebrities. "I have seen how Sanjay Dutt bounced back to life after those rough years," she said. The decision has come from the highest court of the land leaving little scope for any doubt about the process. I am saddened and shocked but law is blind in terms of status and emotions. This is rule of the law and it has taken its course.