Actor Salman Khan was got relief under the Arms Act case when a local court here on Tuesday allowed the prosecution to examine four witnesses and produce some documents related to the Forensic Science Laboratory. The next hearing has been posted for March 10.
Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM), Jodhpur, Anupama Bijlani gave the prosecution the last chance to produce all the witnesses on March 10. “If the prosecution fails to produce them on that day, the examination would be closed and the matter would again be set for judgment,”' Salman’s lawyer H.M.Saraswat told reporters.
“Besides this, the magistrate has also ordered to produce three FSL reports pertaining to the case on the same day along with relevant documents, if required,'' Mr Saraswat said.
Prosecution counsel N.K.Sankhla said the four witnesses allowed by the court to be called are called material witnesses and their examination would be important for the case.
The prosecution had filed two applications in 2006 for examination of witnesses and producing some reports. The issue of pending applications had come up on February 25 when the court was to deliver the final judgment in the case. The CJM then refused to pronounce the judgment before deciding these applications which were partially accepted today March 3.
If found guilty, Salman could be sentenced to imprisonment between three and seven years.
The case against Salman Khan relates to the 1998 blackbuck poaching incident. He was allegedly involved in poaching of two blackbucks near Jodhpur in the intervening night of 1-2 October, 1998, while shooting for Hum Saath Saath Hain .
The case under the Arms Act was registered with Luni Police station in Jodhpur as the State forest department alleged that the arms – a revolver and a rifle --used by the actor during the poaching incident had expired licences and, hence, illegal.
The two blackbucks, a protected animal under the Wildlife Protection Act, were killed on the outskirts of Kankani village near Jodhpur.
The actor also has three poaching cases against him. He has twice spent time in the Jodhpur jail - in April 2006 and again in August 2007.
