Salman will be tried for culpable homicide

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Kishwar Desai [1]

Bollywood actor Salman Khan on Monday received a major setback when a Mumbai sessions court dismissed his petition challenging culpable homicide charge slapped against him in the 2002 hit-and-run case.

Upholding the charge, for which maximum punishment is 10 years of imprisonment, Sessions Judge U.B. Hejib held that the charge was made out against the actor. The judge fixed July 19 for commencement of fresh trial. However, Mr Khan’s counsel Ashok Mundargi said that the actor would appeal against the verdict in the high court.
Mr Khan was earlier being tried in Bandra magistrate court for a lesser offence of causing death by negligence (Section 304 A of IPC), which provides for a maximum punishment of two years in jail. However, after examining 17 witnesses, the magistrate framed charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Since cases related to culpable homicide not amounting to murder are triable by a sessions court, the magistrate had halted the trial and transferred the case to the sessions court.
However, the actor had appealed against the magistrate court’s order. His counsel Mr Mundargi pleaded the magistrate’s order was “erroneous, bad in law and contrary to evidence on record.”
The magistrate, he contended, had failed to appreciate that the actor had neither the intention to kill people nor the knowledge that his rash and negligent driving would kill a person and cause injury to four others.
Public prosecutor Shankar Erande, while opposing Salman’s appeal, said the magistrate had rightly invoked the charge of culpable homicide as he had committed a serious offence.