hit-and-run case: Salman Khan's appeal adjourned

MUMBAI: A court on Monday adjourned till April 29 the appeal filed by Bollywood actor Salman Khan against a magistrate's order invoking the charge of 'culpable homicide not amounting to murder' in the 2002 hit-and-run case.

The matter was adjourned as Sessions Judge U B Hejib was on leave.

The 47-year-old actor has contended that the magistrate had erred in invoking the charge of 'culpable homicide not amounting to murder' (Section 304 part II of IPC) in the hit-and-run case. The offence under this section attracts ten year jail and is triable by a sessions court.

Earlier, Khan was tried by a magistrate for lesser charge of causing death by negligence (Section 304A of IPC), that provides for a maximum punishment of two years in jail.

After examining 17 witnesses, the magistrate had come to the conclusion that culpable homicide charge could be made out against the actor and transferred the case to the sessions court for retrial.

Khan has pleaded that the magistrate's order was "erroneous, bad in law and contrary to evidence on record."

The magistrate had failed to appreciate that he (Khan) had neither the intention (to kill people) nor the knowledge that his rash and negligent driving would kill a person and cause injury to four others, he said.

One person was killed and four others injured when the Land Cruiser allegedly driven by Khan crushed a group of people sleeping on the pavement outside a bakery in suburban bandra in the wee hours on