A day after an officer with the Regional Transport Office (RTO) disclosed that Salman Khan was issued a driving license bearing special VIP number 786 in August 2004 —nearly two years after he was booked as an accused in the 2002 hit-and-run case, the Prosecution on Friday filed an application in the trial court, seeking a direction to the actor to produce his driving license in the court.
Salman’s lawyer Shrikant Shivade opposed the prosecution’s plea, saying it was not maintainable under the Motor Vehicles Act.
While seeking a direction from the court to the accused actor for the production of his driving license, special public prosecutor Pradeep Gharat reiterated that Salman did not possess driving license at the time of the much-discussed hit-and-run incident.
The records produced by the RTO in the trial court shows that Salman was issued the driving license bearing No 786 in August 2004, a fact that Gharat brought to the attention of the court once again on Friday.
The Prosecution’s case is that Salman allegedly in a drunken state —had driven his Toyota land Cruiser recklessly on September 28,2002, killing a pavement dweller and injuring four others, who were asleep on the same pavement.
On his part, the actor has denied that he was behind the wheels at the time of incident. He has also disputed the records produced by the RTO in the trial court.
An assistant inspector with the RTO had told the trial court on Thursday that the Andheri branch of the department had issued a special VIP driving license number 786 to Salman in August 2004.
Sessions Judge DW Deshpande will give his ruling on the Prosecution’s plean on February 23.
Salman is facing a re-trial in the hit-and-run case before the city sessions court for an aggravated charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder invoked against him midway through the earlier trial on December 5, 2013.