File photo: Actor Salman Khan outside a court.
There was no evidence to prove that Bollywood superstar Salman Khan had taken drinks and was driving the car on the day in 2002 when it rammed into a bakery in suburban Bandra, killing one and injuring four, his lawyer argued in the Bombay High Court today.
Justice AR Joshi is hearing an appeal filed by the actor against his conviction and the five-year sentence awarded by the sessions court in Mumbai in the case on May 6.
The prosecution's case is that just before the mishap on September 28, 2002, Mr Khan drove from his Bandra house to Rain Bar and later to JW Marriot hotel. At Rain Bar, he had drinks.
His lawyer, Amit Desai, today said the prosecution did not produce 'parking tag' of JW Marriot hotel to prove who was driving the car. The evidence also did not throw light on who drove the car from Rain Bar to JW Marriot and who parked it at the hotel, he said.
The prosecution produced "pirated" version of facts in the trial court that Mr Khan was driving, he said.
Nobody had seen Mr Khan driving the car that day and only the injured victims at the mishap site had said that Mr Khan got down from the driver's seat, creating the suspicion that he was driving, Mr Desai said.
During the trial, Mr Khan's lawyer had argued that the car door on the left side got jammed after the accident, hence he got down from the driver's seat though he wasn't driving it.
Ravindra Patil, the then police bodyguard of Mr Khan who passed away in 2007, also did not say that the actor was driving in the FIR lodged on the night of accident.
But two days later, Mr Patil said in a statement before a magistrate that Mr Khan was driving the car. "This was an afterthought and an improvement made by him in evidence," Mr Desai alleged, arguing that this statement was "inadmissible as evidence and could not be relied upon."