Salman was in driver's seat during accident: Prosecution

Actor Salman Khan was driving the car and not Ashok Singh, who was brought into the picture 13 years after the accident at Bandra here, the prosecution said on Tuesday in the Bombay High Court.

One person was killed while four were injured on that fateful night in September 2002.

“Thirteen years later, he comes and deposes....no person can keep a person on employment for 13 years, who has brought bad name to him,” Public Prosecutor and Government Pleader Sandeep Shinde told Justice A R Joshi, who is hearing the appeal of the actor, who was convicted by the Mumbai Sessions Court and given a five-year term.

Shinde also said the defence’s claim that there were four occupants in the car should have been brought in the early stages of the trial and not at the fag end. According to the prosecution charge, Khan was driving the car while his police bodyguard Ravindra Patil was sitting on his left and singer-actor Kamaal Khan in the rear seat. The defence’s claim is while Singh was driving the car, Khan was on his left while Patil and Kamaal were in the back.

As he opened his case, Shinde started dwelling on the eye-witnesses who were injured—Muslim Nimayat Shaikh (PW-2), Mannu Khan (PW-3), Mohammed Kalim Iqbal Pathan (PW-4) and Mohammed Abdullah Shaikh (PW-11).

Dwelling on the evidence of Mannu Khan, who was injured in the accident, Shinde pointed out that he had seen Salman Khan getting out from the right side of the car.

“Coming down from the right side implies that he was driving the car,” he said, adding that as far as the issue of intoxication is concerned, the same witness had also testified about seeing the actor falling down and getting up and again felling down and getting up.

On the testimony of Fransis Daiman Fernandes (PW-7) and Ramasare Ramdev Pande (PW-8), the prosecutor said they had seen the actor leaving the place within minutes after the incident.