Contesting the prosecution’s evidence that Salman Khan was behind the wheels at the time of the much-discussed September 28, 2002 mishap, his lawyer Amit Desai told the Bombay High Court on Wednesday that there was no witness or direct evidence to show that his client was driving the car at that time.
“There was no witness who had seen Salman Khan driving the car,” the actor’s lawyer Amit Desai told Justice AR Joshi, who is hearing Salman’s appeal against his conviction and five-year jail term in the 2002 hit-and-run case.
Pointing out that the prosecution had relied upon the evidence given by Ravindra Patil, the actor’s police bodyguard, an eye-witness and complainant in the case, Desai told the HC that Patil had died midway through the trail and was not available for cross-examination.
In addition, the singer-actor Kamaal Khan, who was in the car, was never examined by the trial court, Desai argued before the High Court.
Desai told the High Court that Kamaal Khan’s statement had been recorded by the Bandra police station soon after the incident, but he was never called as a witness either before the Magistrate’s Court or the Sessions Court. Moreover, he is now settled in the United Kingdom.
Desai also claimed that the trial court had also not taken into consideration the admission given by Ashok Singh, the actor’s family driver, who had told the trial court on oath that it was he and not Salman who was driving the car at the time of mishap.
“Twenty-seven witnesses were examined by the trial court, but not of one them had said that Salman Khan was driving the car. Some witnesses said that he got down from the right side of the car, but that it no way meant that it was from the front seat,” Desai said.
Rejecting the defence’s request not to entertain the evidence of Ravindra Patil, the actor’s police bodyguard who was also eye-witness and complainant in the case, on the ground that he was not available for cross-examination, Sessions Judge DW Deshpande had observed in his verdict delivered on May 6, 2015: “….But in my opinion, the evidence of Ravindra Patil is complete evidence. The facts deposed by him would not be changed, even the charge under section 304 Part II of the IPC is framed.”
Patil, the actor’s police body guard, had died of acute bilateral tuberculosis, at a city civic TB hospital on October 3, 2007, midway through the original trial. During the original trial, Patil had deposed before a Magistrate, saying that that he had warned Salman not to drive rashly or else he would meet with an accident but the actor did not heed to his advice.
Dismissing the argument made by the actor’s lawyer that his client had been ‘implicated’ by the police under media pressure, the judge observed that, “Such an argument also does not appeal to the conscience of the prudent man.”