Black buck poaching case: Court allows Salman Khan's lawyer to re-examine prosecution witness

A Jodhpur court hearing the case under Arms Act against Bollywood supertstar Salman Khan on Tuesday allowed the defence to re-examine a prosecution witness.

"Now, we would examine the then district magistrate Rajat Kumar Mishra on July 19 as the chief judicial magistrate's court has allowed our application and has summoned Mishra on the date of hearing," said H M Saraswat, counsel for Khan.

Before this, the application for the re-examination of Mishra had been rejected by the trial court in March this year, after which the defence moved a revision petition in the session court against this rejection. The session court had set aside the order of the trial court and had ordered the trial court to reconsider the application.

A case had been registered against Khan under Arms Act for alleged use of weapons with expired license during the poaching of two black bucks at village Kankani on 1-2 October, 1998.

"Today, the CJM Dalpat Singh Rajpurohit heard the application once again and based on our arguments, allowed us to re-examine Mishra on the next date", said Saraswat adding that "we had some queries regarding the prosecution permission given by Mishra against Khan."

Additional Public Prosecutor Dilip Singh objected to the plea of Khan arguing that adequate opportunities have already been given to the defence for examination of the witnesses.

"The defence has already been given occasions for the examinations of the witnesses and this demand was nothing but dragging the trial for some more time", contended Singh.