Mar 25, 2013:
Bollywood actor Salman Khan gets a breather in the 2002 hit and run case as the sessions court deferred the hearing till April 8. Sources said that Salman has already filed a revision application and the court may take the revision application in to consideration on April 8 .
Earlier, Ashok Mundargi, Salman’s lawyer, has also made it clear that the actor is not going to appear in the court in person.
The case would come up for the first time before the Sessions Court after a Magistrate transferred the matter to that Court by charging the actor with a more serious charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder’.
Along with the prosecution’s case against Salman, the court would also hear his appeal against the Magistrate’s order, invoking the charge of ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ against him which attracts a punishment upto ten years in prison.
One person was killed and four injured when a Land Cruiser, allegedly driven by Salman, ran over people sleeping on pavement outside a bakery in suburban Bandra in the wee hours of September 28, 2002.
On 8 March, 2013, advocate Ashok Mundargi, Salman’s lawyer, had urged the Sessions court to hear the main case against the actor and his appeal against Magistrate’s order invoking the charge of `culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ (section 304 part II of IPC) simultaneously.
The trial before the Magistrate was proceeding on the lesser charge of ‘causing death by negligence’ (section 304 A of Indian Penal Code), which attracts maximum punishment of two years in jail.
After examining 17 witnesses, the Magistrate concluded that the charge of ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ was prima facie made out against the actor.
