The Supreme Court on Friday rejected a plea filed by a victim of the Salman Khan hit-and-run case challenging the Bombay High Court’s acquittal of Khan in the 2002 accident.
“Since the appeal by the state of Maharashtra is already there, there is no need for another appeal,” said the bench of Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar and Justice Arun Mishra while declining the plea by Muslim Niyamat Shaikh.
Besides seeking to challenge Khan’s acquittal, Shaikh had also sought compensation.
The apex court on July 5 had allowed a plea by the Maharashtra government challenging the acquittal of Khan, but declined to fast-track the hearing of the matter.
On February 19, the apex court issued a notice to Khan regarding the Maharashtra government’s petition challenging the December 2015 high court verdict.
The actor was found guilty by a sessions court on May 6, 2015, for the offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, among other charges. He was sentenced to five years in jail for the accident, in which one person was killed and four others injured.
Khan told the supreme court that he was not driving his Toyota Land Cruiser when the accident took place and that the police was trying to implicate him in the case.
Claiming that his driver Ashok Singh was at the wheel, he said the prosecution had failed to produce a witness or a photograph showing that he was driving.
The Maharashtra government contended that there were scores of witnesses at the accident spot who saw him in the driver’s seat.
