The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside a Rajasthan High Court order staying actor Salman Khan’s conviction in a 17-year-old blackbuck hunting case to facilitate his travel abroad on work.
A Bench led by Justice S.J. Mukhopadhyay while refusing to uphold the High Court’s stay order, said a court cannot stay a judicial order of conviction merely because it would prevent him from entering a foreign country.
In November 2013, the Rajasthan High Court had stayed Salman’s conviction so that he could get a visa to go to U.K. for a film shoot.
The actor had been sentenced to a five-year term in prison for hunting the protected animal.
His conviction and subsequent prison sentence of five years made him ineligible for a visa under U.K.’s immigration rules and subsequently, he was denied one.
The Rajasthan government challenged the High Court’s stay order. It said there was no “exceptional circumstances” in Salman’s case which warranted such a “blanket order.”
“If some foreign country is not granting permission to visit the said country on the ground that the respondent [Mr. Khan] was convicted of an offence and sentenced for five years of imprisonment under the Indian Law, the said order cannot be a ground to stay the order of conviction,” Justice Mukhopadhyay wrote in the 11-page order for the Bench.
“Only if the court comes to a definite conclusion that irreversible consequences/injustice would be caused to the accused which could not be restored, was it well within the domain of the court to stay the conviction. No such ground has been shown by the High Court while passing the impugned order [November 2013],” the Supreme Court Bench observed.
Noting there is nothing on record to suggest that Salman needs to visit the U.K. again for a film shoot, the Bench however gave the actor liberty to approach the High Court again for stay on conviction.
