AN INDIAN court on Thursday (December 5) ordered a fresh trial for Bollywood star Salman Khan, who is accused of culpable homicide in a hit-and-run case dating back to 2002, reports said.
Khan, 47, is alleged to have driven his Toyota Land Cruiser vehicle onto a pavement and over five sleeping homeless people in suburban Mumbai, killing one and injuring four others.
During the decade-long court proceedings, Khan initially faced lesser charges of rash and negligent driving. But prosecutors secured a charge of culpable homicide earlier this year.
On the basis of the more serious charge, Khan applied for a fresh trial discarding earlier evidence.
This was granted by Mumbai Judge DW Deshpande on Thursday.
Deshpande said all the witnesses would be examined and cross-examined again in the fresh trial, which would be put on fast-track mode.
He fixed December 23 for the prosecution and defence to submit their lists of witnesses, after which a trial date would be fixed.
Prosecutors objected to a fresh trial, calling it a “stalling tactic” by the actor, India’s NDTV news network reported.
Khan faces a jail term of up to ten years if found guilty.
The actor has been a controversial figure since he first broke into Bollywood in the late 1980s in the hit romance film “Maine Pyar Kiya” (I Fell in Love).
In 1998 he spent more than a week in prison for killing endangered Indian gazelles in Rajasthan.
