Actor Salman Khan has filed a caveat in the Supreme Court (SC), seeking to pre-empt any ex-parte order in the appeal filed by the Maharashtra government, challenging Bombay high court verdict acquitting him in the 2002 hit-and-run case.
The actor, whose five-year jail term awarded by a trial court was overturned by the High Court, said in his plea that no order should be passed in the matter without hearing his counsel.
The state government had on January 22 moved the Apex Court against Bombay high court's verdict freeing Khan in the hit-and-run case, in which one person was killed and four others were injured.
The special leave petition (SLP) contained 47 grounds to assail the High Court's verdict and sought restoration of the trial court's decision by which the 50-year-old actor was convicted and sentenced to five-year jail.
The high court, in its verdict passed on December 10 last year, had held that the prosecution had failed to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that the actor was driving the vehicle at the time of the accident and was drunk. The HC judgement had come on an appeal by Khan, seven months after he was pronounced guilty by trial court.