From being touted as a high-profile case which would build significant deterrence against drunken driving and hit-and-run incidents, it turns out that Salman Khan was not drunk and was not driving the Toyota Land Cruiser that killed one labourer and injured four others sleeping on the pavement. All the trial court’s findings against the Bollywood superstar, which prompted it to sentence him to five years imprisonment, have been overturned by a single-judge bench of the Bombay high court in its infinite wisdom. The ball now lies in the court of the Maharashtra government. Will it consider an appeal in the Supreme Court against the high court judgment? The chain of evidence that had made the trial court findings look impeccable has been punctured by Justice AR Joshi. So if Salman Khan was not driving the vehicle, who was the culprit?
Was it his family driver Ashok Singh, who suddenly appeared on the scene and testified as a defence witness in the trial court in March this year and admitted to the crime? After 13 years of prosecution and despite securing a conviction at the trial stage, the Mumbai police, back to square one, must ask itself — why did it botch up the case? Ashok Singh’s sudden appearance on the scene is suspicious. The Mumbai police must interrogate him to gauge the veracity of his claims and whether he was propped up by vested interests. On the charge that Salman was drunk, the defence claimed the waiter serving Salman at the bar could not reliably conclude that the actor was guzzling alcohol. Police constable Ravindra Patil, also Salman’s bodyguard, had made sworn statements that Khan drove the vehicle at an unsafe speed despite his entreaties to slow down, but the high court termed him a partially reliable witness whose testimony would need independent corroboration. That the one person who could have offered that corroboration, singer Kamaal Khan, was never produced in court, is a shocking example of police and prosecution ineptitude. Instead of being granted witness protection, Patil was allegedly victimised by the police department, and passed away in 2008 of tuberculosis.
According to the judgment, Patil’s testimony has some improvements from his initial statements. Now that Patil is no more, there will be no opportunity to re-examine him. But it is surprising that the testimony of a police officer, who had nothing to gain from sticking to his stand, would require independent corroboration. Despite eyewitness testimony about Salman’s presence at the scene of the accident, there was inexplicable failure in arresting him promptly, and then further delay in submitting his blood samples for forensic analysis. Thankfully, the court has accepted that Salman was present inside the vehicle when the car swerved out of control. However, the judge has been charitable to him by accepting the defence’s contention that he fled the scene because of apprehension of violence by an irate mob that had gathered at the scene. On the contrary, Salman could have redeemed himself had he acted as a responsible citizen and promised that the driver would be punished and then rushed the victims to hospital. It is undeniable that the hit-and-run case has stayed in public memory for 13 years because at the heart of this case was the involvement of a highly popular celebrity. Despite public and media attention, the prosecution’s repeated failures to deliver justice to the victims in the case, has further lowered the already low public confidence in investigating agencies, by several more notches. Those who supervised the investigation must now be held culpable for their acts of omission and commission in the case.
