Mumbai, Dec. 9: Bombay High Court today described as "a wholly unreliable witness" Salman Khan's deceased police bodyguard who had claimed the actor was drunk during his 2002 hit-and-run crash.
Justice A.R. Joshi, who has been dictating his judgment on Salman's appeal against his five-year sentence pronounced by a sessions court, also observed that the drink-driving charge had not been proved nor whether the star was at the wheel of the Toyota Land Cruiser.
The judge said bodyguard Ravindra Patil had made "improvements" on his claims in the FIR in subsequent statements given to a magistrate. Justice Joshi's dictation of the judgment started on Monday and will end with the verdict expected tomorrow.
The high court observed that in his FIR filed hours after the accident on September 28, 2002, Patil had made no mention of Salman being drunk but said so only on October 1, after the star's blood test reports came in. Later, Patil had gone on to retract his statement in court, turning hostile.
"In the FIR hours after the incident, he (Patil) has not said anything about alcohol but mentions this on October 1, 2002, in his supplementary statement.... Unnatural on part of the conduct of Patil to say so many things he has not said in the FIR. There has been a material improvement on drunkenness and asking Salman to drive slowly," Justice Joshi said.
The judge also observed that it was "difficult to accept" Patil's statement that "the tyre burst due to the impact" of the crash. One pavement-dweller had died and three others were grievously injured in the accident at Mumbai's Bandra Bandstand.
".... the prosecution has failed to bring material on record to establish beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant (Salman) was driving and was under the influence of alcohol... also, whether the accident occurred due to bursting (of tyre) prior to the incident or the tyre burst after the incident..." Justice Joshi observed.
Patil died in 2007, while the trial was on. He was 30. He had been earlier arrested for missing court summons and was fired from his job. Today, Justice Joshi also expressed the view that the prosecution should have examined Kamaal Khan, singer and friend of Salman, who was with him in the SUV. "Necessary adverse inference needs to be drawn," the judge said, referring to the failure to examine Kamaal.
Yesterday, the court had pointed out several lapses in the procedures followed to check whether there was alcohol in Salman's blood samples and underlined the lack of concrete evidence on the charge that the actor drank liquor in a bar before the accident.
