Salman Khan faces Supreme Court ire in blackbuck case

Bollywood star Salman Khan's legal troubles deepened on Wednesday with the the Supreme Court "prima-facie" holding that it cannot stay his conviction in the 1998 blackbuck poaching case to enable him to travel to the UK for a film shoot.

The bench, however, did not take a final stand and reserved the plea for pronouncement of final verdict after hearing arguments of Khan's lawyer and the Rajasthan government.

Unbiased stand

Among a slew of reasons cited by Justice S.J. Mukhopadhyay, who headed the Bench, expressing inability to stay the conviction, the most hard-hitting was his remark: "You say you are facing hardship and difficulty in discharging professional duties because you won't get a UK visa if the conviction is not suspended. Tomorrow, convicted politicians will come and say they are facing hardship and want to return to Parliament or state Assembly. Can we do that [suspend conviction]? If we allow it in this case, we will have to do it in all cases."

Khan's problem was that though he could travel to many countries after the Rajasthan High Court suspended his fiveyear sentence, the UK insists that a person's conviction should also be suspended for grant of travel or work visa.

"We understand your problem as you can't wait till an acquittal as age is a hero's biggest asset and charm fades with age. But we are helpless. We also know that nobody will compensate him for the monetary loss if he is eventually acquitted in the case," the Bench told senior lawyer Siddharth Luthra, who represented Khan.

'Approach the UK'

Stating that the conviction cannot be suspended simply to enable one to get a visa or because a foreign country is not allowing him to enter, the Bench noted that Khan should better approach a court in the UK with his grievance. The court reminded Luthra that Khan's "hardships and irreparable losses" had been taken care of by the court and the government, and he had been allowed to travel abroad after the suspension of his sentence. The court said that if a country, like the UK, did not allow him in and insisted on suspension of conviction, the Supreme Court does not have the jurisdiction to issue any directions to that country and Salman's "remedy lie somewhere else" and he could "move a court in the UK".

Under British immigration rules, any person convicted for more than four years is not eligible for a visa and his passport is stamped with the word 'convict'.

Khan was sentenced to one-year and five-year terms in separate cases of poaching of two Chinkaras at Bhawad and one black buck at Ghoda Farm (Mathania) in 1998. Besides Khan, actors Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu and Neelam were accused of poaching near Jodhpur during the shooting of the film Hum Saath Saath Hain.