he Bombay high court on Friday reserved its order on the appeal filed by Bollywood actor Salman Khan against his conviction in the 2002 hit-and-run case and the judge is likely to start dictating the
he Bombay high court on Friday reserved its order on the appeal filed by Bollywood actor Salman Khan against his conviction in the 2002 hit-and-run case and the judge is likely to start dictating the judgment on the appeal from December 7.
Justice A.R. Joshi, who was hearing the appeal filed by the actor, has indicated that he would pronounce the judgment soon. Justice Joshi may pass order on actor’s appeal in this month as he will be retiring in December.
The prosecution completed its arguments on Thursday and requested the court to uphold the conviction and five-year imprisonment sentence awarded to the actor by the trial court. Chief public prosecutor Sandeep Shinde and Purnima Kantharia claimed before the court that the case against the actor has been proved beyond reasonable doubt and it is proved that Salman was driving the car under the influence of alcohol and caused accident in September 2002 which resulted in one person’s death and injured four others.
Senior counsel Amit Desai on behalf of the actor commenced his rejoinder arguments as soon as arguments of prosecution were over and he completed his submissions on Friday. He reiterated that actor’s driver Ashok Singh was driving the car when it met with the accident and singer Kamaal Khan was also present in the car at the time of incident but the prosecution chose not to call him as a witness despite his name being in the list of prosecution witnesses.
The defence claim is that complainant and Salman’s police bodyguard at the time of incident Ravindra Patil died due to some ailment and he was not available for cross-examination in the sessions court after more serious charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder was added against the appellant and hence Patil’s evidence was not admissible in the court. According to defence the prosecution should have called Kamaal to depose as to who was driving the car.
