Advantage Salman

Close on the heels of the stupendous success of his movie Sultan, Bollywood actor Salman Khan has now got another reason to rejoice. The Rajasthan High Court has acquitted him in the 1998 Jodhpur blackbuck and chinkara poaching cases. This is the second time that Salman Khan has had a narrow escape from justice. Not too long ago, the actor was acquitted in an infamous hit-and-run case, which dragged on for years. Many believed that he could leverage his status to exploit the loopholes in the system and finally walk away scot-free. In that case he allegedly ran over five persons, killing one; and a more serious charge of culpable homicide was framed against him by the Sessions Court in Mumbai, on the recommendation of the Metropolitan Magistrate. Yet, he was absolved of criminal charges by the Bombay High Court.

The hit-and-run and poaching cases are not related but his acquittal after lower courts held him guilty in both is fraught with unhappy implications. Has he gained from his celebrity status or his proximity to the ‘powers that be’, or is there a watertight legal explanation? Too often, high-profile cases are derailed by the tardy functioning of our judicial system. What is tragic is that invariably the inordinate delay works in favour of the privileged.  This may not be the end of the road for justice. The Supreme Court has already admitted the appeal by the Maharashtra Government challenging the Bombay High Court verdict. The poaching cases too might end up at the door of the apex court. Whatever may be the final outcome, the unequivocal message that must go down is that nobody is above law.   

Salman Khan’s brush with the criminal justice system is troublesome on another count. That he had to spend some time in jail and later continued to be at the tentative mercy of the court has, in no way, adversely impacted his popularity. Be it his outrageous comments on “rape” or his star-studded recklessness, he has acquired the aura of an outlaw who chooses to abide by the orthodoxy of the law on his own terms. His continued popularity tells  as much about him as about us.