Thursday, May 7, 2015

Will Salam Get Bail Today

What justice for Salman Khan means-Economic Times Editorial -08.05.2015 6.a.m.
It is appropriate that the legal system should not determine the penalty for a crime like drunken, reckless driving on the basis of the identity of the culprit. That many Indians react in a fashion that essentially links penalty to the identity of the culprit or the victim only serves to show that a modern, democratic conceptualisation of justice is yet to become part of the popular sensibility. In premodern systems of jurisprudence, crimes and their follow-up tend to be treated as matters to be sorted out between the victim/victim’s surviving relatives and the culprit. The state’s role is to facilitate the process.
 
This is not how a democracy sees crimes. Crimes are violation of society’s norms codified into the law of the land. Violations of the law are a challenge to orderly functioning of society and must be curbed by the state. The state will prosecute the criminal, regardless of the victim’s opinion in the matter. Justice is not a matter of the victim seeking revenge or professing forgiveness, but the state enforcing society’s collective norms to deny anyone impunity. In some traditional jurisprudence, if a mother is willing to accept blood money from her son’s killer and forgive him, he can walk free. But the idea that a rich man can escape the wages of crime by paying someone off is alien to the idea of justice in a democracy.
 
Justice entails payment of compensation. Clearly, there is miscarriage of justice in the court’s failure to disburse the compensation that Salman Khan promptly deposited with it for disbursal to the victims’ families. The elite chivvy that one of their own is being punished for non-intended harm done to those who put themselves in harm’s way. The poor victims of the crime get nil or measly compensation. Long delays mock the idea of justice. This is not the judicial system India needs
 

Why justice was not done to Salman Khan

Would have been better to pull up the civic body and directing the opaque institution to keep its footpaths free of sleepers and squatters.

By  CP Surendran      -Daily o       
A fatal attribute of poor countries like India is that most people are forced to do stupid things. Poverty brings out the worst in us. The middle class and the upper middle class tend to make a virtue of it, so the small-change charity they do occasionally comes handy in their posthumous bargain with god. To a considerable extent, this is what has happened in the Salman Khan hit-and-run case: the deeper issues that the accident belies have been consistently ignored by the moral majority.
 
On a steamy September night in 2002, Salman Khan allegedly drove his Toyota Landcruiser truck over Nurulla Sharif, Abdullah Shaikh, Munnu Khan and Mohammed Kalim. All of them were sleeping on the footpath next to the popular American Express Bakery in Bandra, Bombay. Allegedly Salman Khan was drunk. At the time, the star was going through the last throes of his affair with Aishwarya Rai. Which lover wouldn't go berserk when those green eyes looked away in disdain? The accident killed Nurulla. The others were seriously injured. Abdullah lost a leg. Clearly, Salman - his lawyer said the star's driver was at the steering, but we would not buy that theory in a hurry - shouldn't have got drunk and taken the wheel.
 
Indeed, for ten years, that was the charge against him. That he consumed alcohol and drove recklessly. It was in 2012 that a metropolitan magistrate, no doubt in love with the popular - and stupid - idea of justice and the glory of handing it out to a high profile star to the applause of that wondrous cretin, the media, stuck on the case the tag of culpable homicide. And the situation for Salman became dire, and he had to step out from his largely hallucinogenic life. He has now been found guilty on the count of culpable homicide as well and faces five years in jail if he does not go in appeal.
 
The question is not just of Salman's guilt. It is also that the state of Maharashtra, more specifically the BMC (Bombay Municipal Corporation) is an equal accessory to the crime. The BMC is the richest civic body in India, with an annual budget of over Rs 40,000 crore, a substantial part of which is invariably never spent, but finds its way to a huge fixed deposit, and whose interest yields hundreds of crores. Against this backdrop, consider the fact that 60 per cent of its population lives in slums and pavements. The men that stopped that car that day in their sleep had nowhere to go but the footpath, just like so many hundreds of thousands of others in urban India.
 
In my book, the state's callousness to its people is the prime accused in cases like this. Through the long timeline of the Salman Khan case, not once did the BMC's partnership in crime come under scrutiny. Which is why when Abdullah said on Tuesday that he wanted compensation to get through his life, the judge talked at length about the need to punish Salman Khan. The stupidity of the justice will appeal to the Indian middle class. For them, giving Salman a fiver shows the great socialistic ideal of the law: everyone is equal before the metropolitan magistrate.
 
Unfortunately, that is not justice. Justice would have been to pull up the BMC and directing that opaque institution to keep its footpaths free of sleepers and squatters. That would go a long way in preventing American Express Bakery kind of accidents. Taking care of the victims' life post-accident would have met that end, too. Asking Salman Khan to bear the brunt of that pay-out would have been justice. And then perhaps sentence him to a few hundred hours of community service. The last would invite the wrath of the righteous: what about the ordinary citizen? And the answer partly is, do take care of him, sir. Abdullah is one.


Instead we are about to lock away at the taxpayer's expense a talent that entertained the same middle India that is baying for Salman's blood. I can think of better uses for my money. If you lost a leg in a car accident, you would be one of the first to agree.



Justice will be upheld in Salman Khan case: Gul Panag-Indian Express-08.05.2015

Gul Panag said she was "confident" that Salman Khan will further be granted bail on Friday and believes that "justice will be upheld".

As Bollywood superstar Salman Khan was given interim bail on Wednesday after being sentenced to five years in jail for the 2002 hit-and-run case, actress and social activist Gul Panag said she was “confident” that the actor will further be granted bail on Friday and believes that “justice will be upheld”.
“It’s a very difficult time for his family but we live in a country where as responsible citizens we must obey the law of the land,” Gul, who was here on Wednesday to promote a jewellery brand, told IANS.
“… his (Salman’s) team will definitely appeal in a higher court and I’m confident that justice will be upheld,” the 36-year-old added.

Salman was granted two days interim bail on medical grounds by the Bombay High Court after his defence team led by Supreme Court counsel Harish Salve mentioned the matter before Justice A.M. Thipsay.
Salve cited medical reasons for seeking bail and also argued that a person could not be arrested on the basis of a summarised court order.
The hearing on the bail application will now be taken up on Friday morning.



My views On Salman Jail case
Today 08.05.2015 at noon High Court Granted Bail to Salman-Times of India
The Bombay high court on Friday suspended the five-year jail term of actor Salman Khan in the 2002 hit-and-run case, triggering wild celebrations among his fans across the country.
The single bench of justice Abhay Thipsay, however, asked the 49-year-old actor to surrender his passport and seek fresh bail from the sessions court which had convicted and sentenced him on Wednesday. He was released for a surety of Rs 25,000.

“We can fix a date in June or July whether he is guilty or not,” the judge said while suspending the sentencing pending a fresh appeal. Khan was not present in court.
The star of some of Bollywood’s most commercially successful films is accused of running his SUV over five people sleeping on a Mumbai pavement, killing one of them.
Khan will have to approach the sessions court during the day as his two-day interim bail period ends today.

“We cannot take pleasure in the fact that someone is in custody. There is no law that says if there is alcohol (in blood) it is culpable homicide,” the justice said, adding, “This is not a case where the accused needs to be kept in detention.

“Even on the basis that there is sufficient evidence saying the accused was driving, several other conditions have to be taken into consideration.”
The hearing took a dramatic turn earlier when the Bollywood superstar’s lawyer asked why singer Kamaal Khan, who was in Salman’s car on the fateful night, had not been examined by the police.

Arguing for Khan, senior lawyer Amit Desai told the bench that the sessions judge who handed down the sentence to Khan had ignored crucial facts and there were no eye witnesses in the case. He said there was a dispute if there were three to four persons present in the car when the accident took place.

Thipsay sought the deposition of Ravindra Patil, a Mumbai Police constable who was the then bodyguard of Khan. Patil was the first to inform police about the accident, and it was on his statement that an FIR was registered at Bandra police station.
Desai told the court that one of the prosecution witnesses, a person who owned a shop next to the spot of the accident, had stated that he saw Salman coming out of the car.
"The witness also says that two (more) persons were also there (apart from Salman) and the police constable, but when he was cross-examined he says: 'I do not know where the two went'," Desai told the court.

Justice Thipsay said, "I want to know how many witnesses deposed before the sessions court and the magistrate court. I want to know whether the witnesses have had after thoughts."

Salman Khan's hit-and-run case: What is culpable homicide?-TOI 07.05.15


Actor Salman Khan has been convicted for culpable homicide on Wednesday in 2002 hit-and-run case.

The word 'homicide' came from the Latin terms, meaning killing of a human being by a human being is homicide.

Culpable Homicide is defined by section 299 of the Indian Penal Code. According to the section 299 of IPC whoever causes death by doing an act with the intention of causing death, or with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, or with the knowledge that he is likely by such act to cause death, commits the offence of culpable homicide.

The essential elements of the offence of culpable homicide are as follows -

i) that death of a human being was caused ;
ii) by an act with the intention of causing death ; or
iii) by an act with the intention of causing such bodily injury as is likely to cause death ; or
iv) by an act with the knowledge that the act was likely to cause death . Without one or other of these elements an act , though it may be in it's nature criminal and may occasion death , will not amount to the offence of culpable homicide .

Section 299 defined Culpable Homicide in simple way. Culpable homicide are of two kinds:
I. Culpable homicide amounting to murder.
II. Culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Culpable homicide is the Genus, and murder is the Species.

All murder are culpable homicide but not vice-versa. Section 299 cannot be taken to be definition of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Culpable homicide is the genus, section 300 defines murder which means murder is the species of culpable homicide.

It is to be noted here that culpable homicide not amounting to murder is not defined separately in IPC, it is defined as part of Murder in the section 300 of IPC.

Section 300 - Except in the cases hereinafter excepted, culpable homicide is murder, if the act by which the death is caused is done with the intention of causing death, or

Culpable Homicide is not amounting to murder: Exception 1 to 5 of s300 of IPC defines conditions when culpable Homicide is not amounting to murder:
I. Provocation.
II. Right of private defense.
III. Public servant exceeding his power.
IV. Sudden fight.
V. Consent.

Exception-
1-culpable homicide is not amounting to murder if the offender, whilst deprive of self control by grave and sudden provocation, caused the death of the person who gave the provocation or causes the death of any person by mistake or accident.

The above exception is subject to the following provisions:- The provocation is not sought or voluntarily provoked by the offender as an excuse for killing or doing harm to any person.

2.The provocation is not given by anything done in obedience to the law, or by a public servant in the lawful exercise of the powers of such public servant.

3. The provocation is not given by anything done in the lawful exercise of the right of private defense.

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