Charging that his client Salman Khan had been falsely implicated in the 2002 hit-and-run case, defence lawyer Shrikant Shivade on Friday made a strong case for the trial court to accept the actor’s submission made under section 313 of Cr PC and his driver Ashok Singh’s subsequent corroborative testimony that he (Salman) was not driving the car at the time of mishap.
Opening his final arguments in the 2002 hit-and-run case through an allegation that “evidence had been manufactured to falsely implicate” the actor, defence lawyer Shivade said, “There is no evidence on record to show that Salman was driving the car. All that has emerged in the examination of witnesses is that he (Khan) got down from the right hand side of the car. This is because the left door got jammed in the impact of the mishap and did not open”.
Maintaining that the stand taken by his client Salman that it was not he but his driver Singh was behind the wheels at the time of mishap was not an “afterthought” as claimed by the Prosecution, Shivade said: “Merely because Salman Khan had got down from the driver’s side does not mean that he was driving...We have explained this in cross—examination (of defence witness) and also in the statement of the accused”.
Alluding to the depositions made by the actor and his driver that it was not he (Salman) but the latter (Singh) who was behind the wheels at the time of mishap, Shivade told Sessions Judge D W Deshpande: “There is absolutely no reason as to why my client’s statement in the court and subsequent corroborating evidence given by his deriver Ashok Singh testimony should not be accepted”.