Salman case hearing to start tomorrow

Four months after Salman Khan was convicted and sentenced to five years' rigorous imprisonment in a 13-year-old drunken-driving and hit-and-run case, the Bombay High Court will commence regular hearing of his appeal from Monday.

Justice A R Joshi will preside over the appeal the 49-year-old actor has filed against his conviction.

Daily hearing has been scheduled at 11 am on Monday, and before it commences, the court will have a final look at the trial's paper-book, which has become a bone of contention over the last month.

Salman will be represented by a battery of lawyers led by senior counsel Amit Desai, while the Maharashtra government and the Mumbai Police will be represented by public prosecutor and government pleader Sandeep Shinde and additional public prosecutor Purnima Kantharia.

On May 6, the actor was convicted by Additional Sessions Judge D W Deshpande of the Mumbai Sessions Court of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced to jail, but escaped being sent to prison after the Bombay High Court granted him interim bail till May 8.

On May 8, the HC suspended the five-year sentence and granted Salman bail pending his appeal against conviction.

On September 28, 2002, Salman had reportedly in a drunken state lost control of his Toyota Land Cruiser Lexus and rammed it to the pavements of the American Express Bakery at the Hill Road-St Andrews Road junction, killing one person and injuring four others.

Khan’s defence, however, has been that he was not drunk and not driving the car: Family driver Ashok Singh was behind the wheels. And he, too, was not at fault as a tyre-puncture had caused the car to veer off the road.

Over the past four months, Sushilabai Patil, mother of late police constable Ravindra Patil, who was assigned as bodyguard to Khan and was the main complainant in the case, sought to move a plea seeking cancellation of Khan's bail, which was rejected by Justice Joshi.

Shashikala Gangurde, wife of murder convict Bhagwan Gangurde, had filed an intervenor application saying Khan's case was heard out of turn whereas others' applications are kept pending and they languish in jails. This plea was also rejected.