Ek Tha Poacher: A Handy Guide to Salman Khan’s Blackbuck Case

Need the lowdown on Salman’s legal misadventures? The Quint explains it all.

Altered image used for representational purpose. 

(Photo: Harsh Sahani/The Quint)

(This story has been reposted on the event of the hearing on Salman Khan's blackbuck case being deferred to 18 December 2018.)

On 5 April 2018, the Jodhpur trial court convicted Bollywood actor Salman Khan for hunting blackbucks in 1998, during the filming of Hum Saath Saath Hain. As the law stood then, the offence was punishable with the imprisonment of one to six years.

Salman’s fellow actors Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu and Neelam, who were tried along with him, have been acquitted by the court. Final arguments in the case, which have been going on for the last 19 years in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Jodhpur Rural, were concluded on 24 March, after which the judge reserved his verdict.

Click here for all the live updates in the blackbuck case.

Khan is no stranger to criminal cases, having already been tried for hunting chinkara deer and for the infamous hit and run drunk driving case, but despite convictions in the trial courts in those cases, he has been acquitted by the high courts each time. All these acquittals are being challenged in the Supreme Court — this blackbuck case was the final trial he still had against him.

Here’s what the case is all about.

The Blackbuck Cases

The Incident

On the intervening night of 1-2 October 1998, Salman Khan and his Hum Saath Saath Hain co-stars Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu and Neelam allegedly hunted and killed two blackbucks near the village of Kankani in Rajasthan. According to the complaints made to the police and the prosecution, it was Salman who actually shot the blackbucks. They were assisted by Dushyant Singh and Dinesh Ganware. Salman found himself the subject of two separate cases based on the incident, one for the actual poaching of the blackbucks, and the other for offences under the Arms Act.

The Wildlife (Protection) Act Case

Blackbucks are among the animals listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972, that cannot be hunted. Hunting them is a criminal offence under the Act, and is punishable with a fine and/or imprisonment of three to seven years at present, but back in 1998, the permissible imprisonment was one to six years. As a result, the maximum punishment that Salman could have faced in this case was six years imprisonment plus a fine.

The crux of the case will be whether the prosecution can definitively prove that the accused killed any blackbucks. True to the arguments raised by Khan in the other poaching cases against him (see below), Salman argued in the case that:

1. He was being maliciously targeted by forest officials;
2. The only weapons in his possession were air rifles which couldn’t have been used to kill deer; and
3. The prosecution manipulated evidence, including the statements of the eyewitnesses, to frame him; a video of one of the eyewitnesses allegedly signing blank papers was shown in court, for instance.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from Salman’s legal history, it’s that these arguments keep succeeding. Even if he is convicted, this is unlikely to mean that he will spend much time in jail, or suffer any real consequences, as he will immediately file an appeal and ask for a suspension of sentence – something which has worked for him in other cases as one can see below.

Also Read: Being Controversial- The Troubled Life of Salman Khan

The Arms Act Case

As mentioned above, Salman was also separately charged with offences under the Arms Act 1959 in relation to this incident. The prosecution alleged that Salman had been in possession of and used two firearms during the incident, the licences for which had expired.

On 18 January 2017, the Jodhpur CJM produced a mammoth 102-page judgement acquitting the actor. The judge admonished the prosecution for failing to prove that Khan had committed the offences he was charged with. He found that not only had the prosecution failed to establish that Khan was in possession and used the firearms, but that the licences for the weapons had also not expired. It was noted that Khan had not filed the annual renewal required under his licence, but that this was a separate offence from what the prosecution had booked him, and outside the Jodhpur court’s jurisdiction.

It should be noted that this acquittal does not automatically affect the proceedings relating to the offences under the Wildlife (Protection) Act. However, if Salman is able to push his ‘air rifles can’t kill anything’ argument through, the fact that the prosecution can’t prove that he was in possession of firearms could be a severe impediment to their case.

The Rajasthan government has filed an appeal against the acquittal.

The Chinkara Poaching Cases

While we wait for the verdict, it might be instructive to see what happened in Salman Khan’s other hunting cases, for poaching chinkara deer.

The Incident

When the investigations into the blackbuck case began, a driver working with the crew of HSSH alleged that Salman had also hunted chinkara deer on 26 September 1998 (near Bhawad village) and 28 September 1998 (near Ghoda farm). Like blackbucks, hunting chinkara is an offence under the Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972. Salman, along with others, was therefore charged with two separate poaching offences under this Act, as well as offences under the Arms Act similar to those mentioned above.

The Cases

In 2006, the trial courts in both cases acquitted Salman of the Arms Act charges but found him guilty of the poaching charges. He was sentenced to fines and imprisonment of one year and five years respectively.

However, in July 2016, the Rajasthan High Court overturned the convictions on appeal by the actor. Salman once again contended that he had been framed, and the HC seemed to agree, finding that the evidence underlying the prosecution case was inconclusive and appeared planted in some instances.

While these observations are disturbing, it should be noted that there are concerns that the court overreached in its reconsideration of the evidence, as appeals courts are normally supposed to consider issues of law, not fact. Another disconcerting fact was that a driver who was a key prosecution witness in the case could not be found to provide evidence to the High Court.

The Rajasthan government has filed appeals against the HC verdicts in the Supreme Court, the process for which is expected to be expedited.

A Different Justice System for Bhai?

A common thread throughout all of Salman’s legal travails has been the favourable treatment he has consistently received from the courts. His supporters will disagree, of course, pointing out that he was convicted initially in the chinkara cases and the hit and run case, causing him to briefly serve time in jail for these offences.

However, the way he has been treated despite such convictions, instead drives the point home. After he was convicted in the chinkara cases in 2006, his sentences were suspended by the court on the condition that he not leave the country. Despite this extraordinary dispensation, he subsequently got even more special treatment when the courts stayed the requirement that he not leave the country, so that he could travel abroad for film shoots.

After his conviction by the trial court in the hit-and-run case, his appeal was fast-tracked through the system to be heard within mere months. The Bombay High Court decided that his case, unlike those of innumerable other undertrials who just happened to not be famous actors, was deserving of this special treatment without providing any particular reasons why his case needed to be treated differently.

And then, of course, there are the inevitable acquittals on appeal. It just so happens that key prosecution witnesses disappear and can’t be examined. It just so happens that evidence needs to be taken afresh and on reconsideration always supports Khan’s claims of being framed. This is not to say that those judgements aren’t entirely correct, or to argue that Salman should be convicted on flimsy grounds. It’s just that it looks like the rules of the game are different for the rich and powerful like him. And while that’s hardly something new, that’s surely no reason to not be concerned.

Also Read: Not Fame, But Shoddy Probe & Lazy Prosecution Bailed Out Salman