Salman Khan: Salman's Defense to Court: 'Don't punish him more just because he is an actor'

Once the verdict was announced pronouncing him as guilty, a visibly shaken and crestfallen Salman Khan was asked by the Judge if he wanted to say anything. To which Salman said, “I was not driving the car.” This, even as he kept gesturing to his sisters Alvira and Arpita to not breakdown and cry in court.

Everything now boils down to how many years will he have to serve in prison. The biggest and the most serious charge that he has been found guilty of is under Section 304(2) of the IPC, which pertains to culpable homicide not amounting to murder that carries with it a maximum jail term of 10 years.

While the sentencing is awaited today, Salman’s defence have been pleading for a lenient jail term of 2 years with a hefty fine/compensation for the affected peoples’ families. The pleas that the superstar’s counsel is making are primarily on two grounds. First, that this incident was mainly an aberration to the ‘human’ personality that Salman Khan is. The counsel have been pleading to the Judge to consider the ‘humanitarian’ work that Salman has been doing which has been bringing about such positive changes to several lives. This despite, Salman giving strict instructions to his counsel not to publicize or use his humanitarian work as a reason for lowering his jail term. The defense told the court, "Don't punish him more just because he is an actor. Enhance the fine but don't punish him beyond 3 years."

The second and more important plea being made pertains again to two very high profile hit and run cases similar to this one. The first being the 1998 Sanjeev Nanda BMW case where Nanda ran over and killed six people including 3 police officers in Delhi and the second one being the Alistair Pereira case in Mumbai, where the latter mowed down and killed 7 people on the pavement. In both cases the Supreme Court handed out jail terms of 2 and 3 years respectively, despite the accused being under the influence of alcohol and behind the wheels when the incidents occurred. The counsel has argued that in both the above cases 6-7 people were killed with no signs of any compensation to the affected people's families, while this incident involves the death of only one person and a compensation pacjkage of Rs 19 lakh that has already been paid by Salman to the concerned people.

The prosecution, in the meanwhile, has pleaded with the judge to hand out the most stringent punishment, not taking his social work into consideration. The court has even ordered for perjury charges to be filed against Salman's driver, Ashok Singh.

Salman Khan could be heading to either the Nasik or the Yerawada jail very soon.