Mumbai: A Mumbai court is today likely to decide whether actor Salman Khan should be tried for culpable homicide not amounting to murder in the infamous 2002 hit-and-run case involving the actor.If convicted for this charge, Salman Khan faces a 10-year jail term.
The 47-year-old actor salman khan was earlier being tried for rash and negligent driving, which carries a maximum sentence of two years. However, in January, the court handling his case accepted that the police had provided evidence that merits trying the actor for culpable homicide. Dabang Salman Khan had in March appealed against a lower court’s order for his retrial in the case under the stringent charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. In his petition, Salman Khan has called the magistrate’s order “bad in law” and “erroneous”.
The fresh charge, under Section 304 (III) of the Indian Penal Code, would attract a maximum jail term of 10 years. Earlier, dabang Khan had been tried under the less severe Section 304A of IPC, relating to causing death by negligence, which stipulates a maximum two years in jail. However, the metropolitan magistrate, after examining 17 witnesses in the case, had invoked the more serious charge under Section 304 (III) of the IPC against Khan.
Public prosecutor S. Erande had said that its witness, police bodyguard Ravindra Patil, who has since died, had repeatedly warned Khan not to drive rashly, but the actor allegedly did not heed him and Erande further submitted that Khan was drunk at the time of the incident in which one person was killed and four others injured. June 10 had been fixed for deciding the appeal, but the court workers were unable to make it on time due to heavy rains. Hence, the case hearing was postponed to June 24.
One person was killed and four others were injured when Salman’s Land Cruiser, allegedly driven by him, crushed a group of people sleeping on the pavement outside a bakery in suburban Bandra in the wee hours of September 28, 2002.
Bureau report
Leave a Reply