NewDelhi/Nagpur:The Supreme Court has issued a notice to Bollywood actor Salman Khan in connection with the 2002 hit and run case in which one person was killed and four others were injured.
This came after the Maharashtra government challenged his acquittal by the Bombay High Court. Salman was acquitted of all charges by the Bombay High Court in 2015.
Salman was acquitted of all charges by the Bombay High Court in 2015.
The high court, in its verdict passed on December 10, 2015, had held that prosecution had failed to prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that the actor was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident and was drunk.
The judgement by the high court had come on an appeal by the superstar, seven months after he was pronounced guilty by trial court of running over five people sleeping on a pavement outside a laundry in suburban Bandra with his Toyota Land Cruiser, killing one and causing injury to four others on October 28, 2002.
The high court had rejected as “wholly unreliable” the statement of eyewitness Ravindra Patil, former police bodyguard of Salman, recorded by a magistrate in which he had accused the actor of driving under the influence of liquor.
The judge had said that Patil was a “wholly unreliable” witness because he had subsequently made “improvements” in his statement to the magistrate.
Patil, the first informant in the case, in the FIR filed soon after the accident had not accused Salman of having consumed liquor but only said he was “speeding” against his advice.
