Salman Khan is no ordinary film star with blockbusters and fan clubs to his name. A celebrity who not only mentors younger actors but also actively aids social service, he is hugely popular among both the producers and the consumers of Bollywood films. Not surprisingly, >his conviction in the hit-and-run case resulted not in any dent in his image or popularity, but in a huge wave of >sympathy from fellow Bollywood stars and film fans . The Mumbai Sessions Court therefore did well to not be swayed by the groundswell of support for the megastar while handing down the judgment in the 2002 case. The verdict was broadly in line with the Supreme Court’s observations in the Alistair Pereira case that the law should be equal for celebrities and ordinary citizens alike in serious offences that result in deaths. Pereira, 21, from a wealthy business family, lost control of his luxury car in Bandra in November 2006 and ran over five labourers and two children sleeping on the pavement. Though the Supreme Court upheld the three-year sentence given by the Bombay High Court, it said that was too “lenient” a punishment for an offence of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The Supreme Court indicated that trial courts should not give the benefit of the doubt to those driving drunk and instead convict them under 304 II (punishable with 10 years imprisonment) than the lesser offence of 304 A that provides for a jail term of two years for negligent and rash driving.
Sessions Court judge D.W. Deshpande’s verdict also nailed attempts by Salman’s lawyers to pin the blame on his driver Ashok Singh, the only defence witness who was suddenly brought up at the last stage of the 13- year-long trial. Singh testified that it was he who drove the vehicle that the prosecution claimed Salman drove in a drunken state. But Judge Deshpande was not convinced, and told Salman as much on the day of the judgment. Though Indian courts have been relatively less stringent in pursuing perjury cases, it is important that the judiciary pursue the perjury matter against Ashok Singh to expose why he was willing to take the blame. The Bollywood discourse that Salman was paying the price for his celebrity status, and that he had done humanitarian work, has an eerie echo with similar arguments made for Sanjay Dutt in the 1993 serial bombings case. Quite rightly, the court did not take such extraneous considerations into account, and the judgment will serve as a model for the lower judiciary in cases of a similar nature. For the police, the lesson is that they cannot be slipshod in investigations. Perhaps the most important message is for society at large: drunken driving could have serious consequences for other people. Deaths caused by drivers under the influence of alcohol should attract the charge of culpable homicide, and not merely that of negligent driving.
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