Salman Khan files 100 cr defamation suit against TV channel

Actor Salman Khan has filed a defamation suit against a TV news channel in the Bombay high court and has slapped damages worth Rs100 crore.

Khan was accused of poaching a chinkara at Bhawad near Jodhpur and another chinkara at Ghoda farms during the shooting of his film, Hum Saath Saath Hain, in September 1998.

In a suit filed before a division bench of the HC in August this year, Khan claimed a sting operation conducted by the channel in the 1998 chinkara poaching case was malicious and defamatory. He wants the channel to be restrained from releasing or making public in any way, any part of that sting operation.

The channel claimed in the sting operation "witnesses claimed they saw Khan shoot the endangered chinkaras in Jodhpur". However, later the "witness/es turned hostile and claimed the video was doctored".

In a previous hearing on August 24 this year, the channel told a single bench of the HC that it had already taken down the video and script of the sting operation and all other related material from its website.

In a hearing earlier this month, both the parties submitted affidavits and told the court they were working out a settlement.

Justice SJ Kathawalla, who is presiding over the matter, will hear the matter on November 18.

In July this year, the Rajasthan HC acquitted Khan in two cases related to poaching . In 2006, Khan was convicted by the trial court and handed over sentences of one and five years respectively for allegedly poaching three chinkaras in two separate instances.