After two adjournments, the re-trial of Bollywood actor Salman Khan in the much-discussed 2002 hit-and-run case finally began before a special court here on Monday, with the first witness deposing before the trial judge.
In his deposition before the court of Sessions Judge DW Deshpande, the first witness, Samba Gowda, said that he had drawn up the panchnama of the articles seized by the police from the scene of accident involving Salman, on September 28, 2002.
In the September 28, 2002 hit-and-run incident, Salman — allegedly in a drunken state — drove his land Cruiser recklessly near his Bandra residence, killing a pavement dweller and injuring four others, who were asleep on the same pavement.
Gowda, who is among the 64 witnesses listed by the Prosecution for examination, described the vehicle involved in the mishap was “a big car” and said he had reached the spot along with the police, shortly after its occurrence.
Responding to queries by Prosecutor Jagannath Kenjalkar, Gowda said that the actor’s car had rammed into the closed shutters of a bakery near the actor’s residence at Bandra.
Gowda said he saw glass pieces, number plate of the car and bumper parts lying on the spot. “These articles were seized by the police from the accident site. I drew up the panchnama of the seized articles. “I can identify the articles collected by police from the accident site,” the witness told the court.
Following Gowda’s deposition, two more witnesses who had also been involved in the panchnama drawing exercise, were discharged by the court.
Three of the four persons injured in the accident were also to depose before the trial court on Monday. However, their deposition was deferred to May 5, as the actor himself was not present in the court. Though the Prosecution has listed 64 witnesses for examination, it is quite unlikely that all the witnesses would be examined during the actor’s re-trial.
On December 5 last year, a city sessions court had ordered a re-trial into the 2002 hit-and-run case involving Salman, thus giving an opportunity to the actor to re-examine the witnesses in the context of an aggravated charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder invoked against him midway through the earlier trial.
Accepting the actor’s plea that the evidence adduced earlier before a magistrate be discarded as he was now facing a more serious charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, Judge DW Deshpande ruled that the trial would be held de novo (fresh) and directed the Prosecution to produce a list of witnesses and documents to be adduced by it as evidence.
On its part, the Prosecution earlier informed the court that it intended to examine 64 witnesses during the fresh trial.
In the normal course, the actor’s re-trial was to begin on March 26 and was later deferred to April 1. However, the sessions court postponed the start of re-trial to April 28, after the Prosecution sought time to produce witnesses in view of police deployment on election duty.
Forty-eight-year-old Salman, against whom fresh charges were framed in the court of Judge U B Hejib on July 24 last year, will now stand a fresh trial under Section 304 (II) of the IPC a more severe charge than the one of causing death by negligence (Section 304-A of IPC) that he was tried for earlier -and other charges, including the ones framed against him under Section 279 of IPC (rash driving) and the relevant provisions of Motor Vehicles Act and Bombay Prohibition Act.
In the earlier trial held in a City Magistrate’s court, Salman had been tried for causing death by negligence under 304 (I) of IPC and for other offences including rash driving, causing hurt, causing grievous injury by an act endangering life or personal safety of others) and driving in a drunken state.
Midway through the trial of the actor under Section 304-A of IPC (causing death by negligence), the Bandra Metropolitan Magistrate had on January 31, 2013 allowed the Prosecution to revive the charge of “culpable homicide not amounting to murder” for allegedly killing a pavement dweller and injuring four others in the hit-and-run case. Through his January 31 order, the Bandra Magistrate committed the case to the city sessions court for a fresh trial.
The original trial had begun in the Magistrate’s court in 2006. During the trial, the Prosecution had in all examined 17 witnesses. However two witnesses, Ravindra Patil, the actor’s former police body guard, and Ramasray Pandey, turned hostile, during the trial. In fact, Patil died of acute bilateral tuberculosis, at a city civic TB hospital on October 3, 2007.