Salman Khan files caveat in SC in 2002 hit-and-run case

NEW DELHI: Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has filed a caveat in the Supreme Court seeking to pre-empt any ex-parte order in the appeal filed by the Maharashtra government challenging Bombay High Court verdict acquitting him in the 2002 hit-and-run case.

The actor, whose five-year jail term awarded by a trial court was overturned by the high court, said in his plea that no order should be passed in the matter without hearing his counsel.

The Maharashtra government had on January 22 moved the apex court against Bombay High Court's verdict freeing Salman Khan in the hit-and-run case in which one person was killed and four others were injured.

The special leave petition (SLP) contained 47 grounds to assail the high court's verdict and sought restoration of the trial court's decision by which the 50-year-old actor was convicted and sentenced to five-year-jail term.

The high court, in its verdict passed on December 10 last year, had held that the prosecution had failed to prove " beyond reasonable doubt" that the actor was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident and was drunk.

The judgement by the high court had come on an appeal by the superstar, seven months after he was pronounced guilty by trial court of running over five people sleeping on a pavement in suburban Bandra with his Toyota Land Cruiser, killing one and causing injury to four others on October 28, 2002.

On May 6 last year, a sessions court had convicted Salman in the case in which one person was killed and four others were injured when his vehicle had crushed them when they were asleep on a pavement outside a laundry.