The Supreme Court Friday issued notice to Bollywood film producers Nazim Hassan Rizvi and Abdul Rahim Khan on a Maharashtra government plea seeking to cancel their bail.

The government also sought to set aside an interim order of the Bombay High Court suspending their sentences for extortion through the crime syndicate of underworld Don Chhota Shakeel.

A bench of judges K.G. Balakrishnan and Arijit Pasayat issued notice after hearing submissions from Maharashtra counsel Mukesh Giri that the suspension of the sentences on appeals by the convicts still pending before the high court was illegal in view of the statutory ban of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), 1999.

He contended that the suspension of the sentences under the criminal procedure law was not applicable in the case.

The allegation against the convicts was that they were extorting money from the film industry and they had financed the film "Chori Chori Chupke Chupke" through black money transactions.

A Mumbai special court convicted them under MCOCA and the Indian Penal Code and sentenced them to six years' rigorous imprisonment and imposed on them a fine of Rs.500,000 each.

The high court while granting bail suspended the sentences and admitted the appeal filed by the convicts. The special leave petition before the Supreme Court by the state government was directed against this order.

Film financer and diamond exporter Bharat Shah, who was also a convict in the case, had already undergone the sentence awarded to him.