All you need to know about the Salman Khan hit-and-run case

A Mumbai sessions court will on Wednesday hear Salman Khan’s plea against a lower court order to try him for culpable homicide in the 2002 hit-and-run case. Salman Khan had run over a group of persons who were sleeping in front of a suburban bakery on the pavement on 28 September, 2002. One persons was killed and four others were injured. [caption id=“attachment_649984” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Salman Khan. AFP[/caption] Here is what what you need about the case: * Salman had allegedly rammed his Toyota Land Cruiser into American Express Bakery on Hill Road junction in Bandra, R__ediff had reported. * Singer Kamaal Khan was in the car with Salman during the accident. The actor fled from the scene of the incident but was later arrested. * Mumbai Mirror reported that Salman had called the 2002 incident “an unfortunate incident beyond his control, such as an act of God.” * On May 2, a court held Salman prima facie guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and rejected his plea to drop the charge before framing charges against him. * A chemical analyst who had tested his blood had told a court in May 2010 that Salman was under the influence of alcohol when he had the accident. The test found 62 mg of alcohol in his blood. * Indian Express reported Salman Khan’s police bodyguard Ravindra Patil had deposed saying that Salman was at  the wheel and he was drunk. He further said he had asked the actor not to drink that night as it may prove dangerous while driving but Salman did not pay heed to his advice. He subsequently changed his statement and was declared a hostile witness by the prosecution. Patil was also suspended from the police force. * Patil later died of tuberculosis. *Another witness from the bakery, Ramasrey Pandey, who was injured in the accident also turned hostile and told the court that he had not seen the actor behind the wheel of the SUV. * Other witnesses in the case witnesses are employees of the JW Marriot Hotel where the actor had gone just before he rammed his car into a bakery in suburban Bandra. * Maharashtra Government had approached the Supreme Court, which set aside the order of both Sessions Court and HC. * Salman was charged with culpable homicide, a charge which was later dropped. But, again in January 2013, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate V S Patil slapped the charge of ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ on the actor and referred the case to Sessions Court for trial. * NDTV  reported that in the petition that he filed, Salman has called the magistrate’s decision “bad in law” and “erroneous”. * Mumbai Mirror reported that Salman in his argument, had said that there was no fixed spot for the homeless, who slept on footpaths every night. “It is not possible for a person staying in the same area to anticipate the presence of people sleeping on a particular footpath at 2.45am,” Salman argued. * At present, Salman is being tried under section 304 (I), (rash and negligent driving) which attracts maximum punishment of two years. Section 304 (II) attracts the maximum sentence of ten years. * The trial before the Bandra Magistrate’s court started in 2006. With inputs from PTI