Activist says Salman Khan submitted false proof, court summons actor

Following a complaint filed by a city-based social worker, the Bandra Magistrate court has issued summons to actor Salman Khan and the Bandra police in a 2002 hit-and-run case. Activist Santosh Daundkar moved an application before the court claiming false evidence was submitted to the court to save Khan.

Khan has been directed to appear before the court on December 27. Magistrate Vasant Patil said the presence of Khan and the police was required "to show cause, if any, why the said application should be granted".

The case dates back to September 28, 2002, when Khan allegedly drove his Land Cruiser into American Express Bakery on Hill Road, killing one and injuring four persons sleeping on the pavement outside the shop. Salman was taken into custody.

Daundkar alleged that doctors who had no connection to the case were made to depose before the court. "The doctors were made to give favourable testimony. The police could never be so naive so as to not know the doctors who had actually examined the injured persons," the application states.

Earlier, Daundkar and former bureaucrat and lawyer Abha Singh had claimed the police were delaying the case. Singh had said 39 summons were to be issued to the witnesses, but the police failed to serve summons in 24 instances. "Twelve of them remained absent and two refused to accept summons," Singh had said.

The criminal case was registered against Khan on the basis of his bodyguard Ravindra Patil's statement. He first claimed that Salman was driving rashly and later, changed his statement, saying he was under the influence of alcohol.

Last month, the sessions court convicted a NRI beautician Noorya Haveliwala to five years' rigourous imprisonment in a similar hit-and-run case. Singh said while the Nooriya Haveliwala and Alistair Pereira drunken driving cases were decided expeditiously, Khan's case did not. "The punishment for giving false evidence can attract a punishment of up to seven years," she said.

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