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After the verdict on Sanjay Dutt with reference to the 1993 Bombay Blasts, Bollywood will possibly have to digest another tumultuous shock. Salman Khan, who is accused of culpable homicide in the 2002 hit-and-run case has been summoned by the Sessions Court. The news of it came out yesterday. Salman Khan had challenged the magistrate’s order which equated the accident to murder, and could have decreed him to minimum 10 years’ of imprisonment.
Sessions Judge Swapna Joshi transferred the case to Justice U.B Hajib. The important papers and evidence of the case are in the process of moving and once completed Salman Khan will be given a notice and a hearing date from the Court.
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Salman’s lawyer Ashok Mundargi appealed before the Magistrate on March 8th pleading his client not guilty of culpable homicide-murder, on grounds of a clear lack of intention and hence demanding a retrial in the much hyped case. The argument for Salman Khan clearly stated the Magistrate’s error in invoking the crime in light of ‘Culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ (as specifically stated in Section 304, Part 2 of the Indian Penal Code). The 2002 Salman Khan hit-and-run case is now being tried by the Sessions Court.
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Salman Khan was previously tried in the same case for an offence of lesser magnitude which stated the charge as ‘Death by Negligence’ (IPC Section 304 A) which would have handed him imprisonment for 2 years.
Based on the facts let out by 17 witnesses, the Magistrate put the pieces of the incident together and concluded that the case of ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ was apt in the case and redirected it for a retrial to the Sessions Court.
This 2002 Land Cruiser accident killed one and severely injured four pavement dwellers who were sleeping there. The accident occurred at dawn outside a popular bakery in Bandra, Mumbai on 28th September, 2002.
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