HC Quashes Complaint Against Salman Khan
Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Thursday quashed and set aside a complaint against actor Salman Khan and his bodyguard Nawaz Shaikh, filed by a journalist who claimed he was assaulted in 2019. The court allowed applications by the two against a magistrate court order that had issued summons and initiated criminal proceedings against them in the said case.
Journalist Ashok Pandey had claimed that in April 2019, he, along with a camera person, tried to film Khan while the actor was cycling. The journalist alleged that though he had the bodyguards’ permission, they allegedly manhandled him and snatched his phone after Khan objected to the filming. He further alleged that the D N Nagar police had refused to file a complaint, after which he filed a private complaint before the magistrate, seeking criminal action against the actor and his bodyguard.
The high court had stayed the proceedings on April 5 last year and continued from time to time.
A single-judge bench of Justice Bharati H Dangre had concluded the hearing and reserved its orders in the plea by the actor and his bodyguard on March 21. Justice Dangre had orally observed, “Let people have their own privacy, Whether it is an actor, lawyer or judge. None of you is above the law. Neither an actor nor a press person. Even they are bound to follow the law.”
The applications in the high court by the duo had sought to quash and set aside the magistrate’s order and the complaint against the applicants.
In March last year, an Andheri magistrate court issued summons against Khan and Nawaz Shaikh. It had earlier called for a report from the police. The magistrate court said that prima facie, there was sufficient material to proceed against the two under sections 504 (intentional insult) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code.
The journalist, in his affidavit filed through his lawyer Fazil Shaikh, had stated that he had immediately dispatched his complaint to the police and filed a second complaint later when they refused to take action. It was after being told by the police that there was no cognisable offence in the incident that the journalist approached the magistrate court. However, according to the journalist, his police complaint had described in detail how his phone had been snatched.
