BOMBAY HC QUASHES JOURNALIST’S CRIMINAL INTIMIDATION COMPLAINT AGAINST SALMAN KHAN
By
KOMAL NAHTA
The Bombay high court today (March 30) quashed the private complaint against Salman Khan, filed by journalist Ashok Pandey in 2019, alleging criminal intimidation. A metropolitan court at Andheri in Bombay had earlier issued the actor summons, which was challenged in the high court.
Pandey had alleged in his private complaint before the magistrate that Salman snatched his mobile phone while cycling on a street of Bombay when some media persons started to click his photos. The actor argued with him and then threatened him, he added. The magistrate last year ordered a police investigation under section 202 of the CrPC and then issued process and summons under section 204 of the CrPC, returnable on April 5, 2022. Salman and bodyguard Nawaz Shaikh, who was also an accused in the case, challenged this order before the HC.
On an earlier date, Justice Revati Mohite Dere stayed the summons, citing improvements in the complainant’s statement. She said that being a journalist, the complainant wouldn’t have kept quiet and all his allegations would have reflected in the first complaint itself.
Justice Bharati Dangre asked today, “Before the process was issued, was the procedure followed? You claim, force was used, but for what?” Salman’s advocate, Abad Ponda, argued before Justice Dangre that the star only asked his bodyguard to stop Pandey from taking his pictures. He further argued that a common link between an offence under sections 504 and 506 of the IPC is a threat which includes consequences. He explained that abuses were not threats.
Ashok Pandey had initially filed a complaint alleging offences under sections 324, 392, 426, 506(ii) and 34 of the IPC and sought for an FIR to be registered under section 156(3). However, the court turned down the request for an FIR but directed investigation under section 202 of the CrPC to ascertain if there were sufficient grounds to proceed against Salman and his bodyguard.
The metropolitan magistrate had relied on a police report in the matter, which stated that prima facie offences under IPC sections 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) were made out against Salman.
