Arms Act case against Salman Khan: Court stays proceeding in trial court

Jodhpur: Rajasthan High Court today stayed the trial court proceedings against actor Salman Khan in the Arms Act case in connection with the black buck poaching incident.

Allowing an application by the defence in the case, the high court stayed the proceedings until the application was decided.

The judgement in the case under Arms Act (possession and use of arms allegedly with expired license) against Khan was to be delivered by the district and session judge on February 25.

But just days before the judgement, four applications with a plea to call 24 witnesses and some other facts and documents related to the case-- moved by the then prosecution witness way back in 2006-- had been found to be undecided by the court.

Prosecution counsel (Public Prosecutor) NK Sankhla had termed these nine-year-old applications "important" for the case and had argued in the court on February 25 that these applications needed to be decided first, which was protested by the defence arguing that if permitted it would mean further delay in judgement, which has already taken 16 long years.

But rejecting the arguments of defence, the trial court had allowed these applications partially, and giving the prosecution a last chance had ordered to call four witnesses and three FSL reports along with the relevant material, if required.

Today, Justice Nirmal Jeet Kaur of the high court, while admitting the application, ordered the trial court not to proceed with the arguments with these four prosecution witnesses until the hearing is completed in the high court, which is scheduled on March 23.

"We had challenged the trial court's decision to allow the nine-year-old applications of the prosecution summoning four fresh witnesses and calling some documents and facts pertaining to FSL, in the high court," defence counsel H M Saraswat said.