 "Bollywood actor Salman Khan arrives Jodhpur airport after being summoned by Jodhpur court to record his statement in the Arms Act")
The Bombay High Court on Thursday said actor Salman Khan could not be convicted in a 2002 hit-and-run case, in which one person sleeping on the pavement had been killed and four others injured. “Prosecution has failed to prove any charges against Salman Khan,” the court observed.
“On the basis of evidence submitted by the prosecution, Salman Khan cannot be convicted,” the judge said while pronouncing the verdict.
Earlier in the day, the Bombay High Court had asked the Bollywood star to be present in the court in person. Judge A R Joshi, who had heard Khan’s appeal against the five-year sentence awarded to him by a sessions court on May 6, had insisted on the actor’s presence at the time of announcing the verdict.
The judge has for the past three days been dictating the verdict in the 2002 hit-and-run case involving Khan. On September 28, 2002, the actor’s car had rammed into a shop in suburban Bandra.
The court had on Wednesday observed that prosecution had failed to prove the actor had consumed liquor and was driving his Toyota Land Cruiser when the mishap took place.
Judge Joshi had also expressed doubts over the statement of key eyewitness Ravindra Patil, former police bodyguard of the actor, in which he had implicated the actor.
The judge had said he (Patil) was a wholly unreliable witness because he had made improvements subsequently in his statement given to a magistrate. In an FIR filed soon after the mishap, Patil had not implicated Khan, but he had said in a statement that Khan was driving under the influence of liquor.
The judge had also expressed a view that the prosecution should have examined the actor’s singer friend Kamaal Khan, who was with him in the car when the mishap took place on September 28, 2002.
As far as the deposition of Ashok Singh, the family driver of Salim Khan (the actor’s father), is concerned, it was according to rules and laid down procedures of criminal law, the court said.
“....this court has come to the conclusion that the prosecution has failed to bring material on record to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant (Salman Khan) was driving and was under the influence of alcohol, also, whether the accident occurred due to bursting (of tyre) prior to the incident or tyre burst after the incident...,” judge Joshi remarked.
The court had made these observations while dwelling upon citations of the Bombay High Court and the Supreme Court in a similar case pertaining to Alister Pereira and the applicability of Section 304, Part II (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), under which Khan was convicted.
