MNS worker questions Salman's bail in SC

On a day when Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray met Salman Khan after he was convicted in the 2002 hit-and-run case, his party worker approached the Supreme Court challenging the “preferential treatment” meted out to the actor despite the five-year jail term awarded to him.

The petitioner, Akhilesh Mayashankar Chaubey, who unsuccessfully contested from Kandivali East constituency in the Assembly poll on an MNS ticket in 2014, urged the apex court to quash the Bombay High Court (HC) order granting two-day interim bail to Salman allowing him to avoid jail despite his conviction and sentence.

He challenged the  HC order of Wednesday, saying the non-supply of a copy of trial court judgment relating to Salman’s conviction and sentence could not be a ground to extend interim  bail to the convict. “Our Constitution guarantees equality before law which means equal treatment of all before law. Therefore, when such privilege of entertaining the petition or appeal and grant of liberty of interim bail is generally not granted to a common man, the same ought not to have been extended to Salman for the reason of him being a celebrity,” the petition stated. The convict ought to have been immediately taken into custody, and the HC should not have entertained and granted bail, the petition stated.

“Does not preferential treatment to a celebrity hamper the public cause of equality before law,” the petitioner, who lost the 2014 polls from Kandivali East constituency, asked in his petition. The petitioner sought immediate arrest and quashing of the high court order.