JODHPUR: Bollywood actor Salman Khan, who was hoping to get bail on Friday, will have to wait at least till Saturday after the sessions court adjourned hearing on his appeal for the suspension of sentence.The upper court has called for the record of the trial court, which convicted Salman a day earlier for poaching two blackbucks at Jodhpur’s Kankani village in 1998, to decide on his appeal or application for bail. If the upper court rejects the appeal for suspension of sentence, Salman will have to approach the high court for bail on Monday. His lawyers, however, said that they were hopeful of getting relief from the sessions court as the trial court’s judgement, which relied on just one eyewitness account while convicting Salman on Thursday, was full of loopholes.‘Trial court also relied on corroborative evidences’The actor’s lawyers pointed out that the trial court also relied on corroborative evidences that had already been rejected by the Rajasthan High Court on July 25, 2016, while acquitting him in two other poaching cases of 1998.Salman is currently lodged at the Jodhpur central jail after being awarded a five-year jail term for killing endangered wildlife. His sisters, Alvira and Arpita, were present at the sessions court during hearing of the case.On Friday, Salman’s lawyer Mahesh Bora sought suspension of the sentence, citing loopholes in the trial court’s judgement. But public prosecutor Pokar Ram Bishnoi opposed it and requested sessions court judge Ravindra Kumar Joshi to first call the trial court’s records.“There are strong evidences against the convict and he should not be released on bail without going through the trial court’s judgement,” public prosecutor Bishnoi said.Bora argued that the trial court relied on eyewitness Poonam Chand Bishnoi (PW-4), whose statements were not reliable. “These were unreliable because the eyewitness said that at 1.30 am on the night (of October 1-2, 1998) a Gypsy passed by his house and he simply started following it. The eyewitness told the court he did not know if the vehicles’ occupants were going for hunting, still he started following it. Now, who would follow someone without any reason, especially so late at night,” asked Bora.“Also, the trial court acquitted the co-accused of the charge that they accompanied Salman and instigated him to open fire and kill the blackbucks. When the charge of instigation has been disbelieved by the trial court, how could it rely on the charge that Salman shot the blackbucks,” Bora asked.The defence argued that the Gypsy said to be involved in the crime was searched by the forest department on October 7, 1998, and no evidence of hunting/poaching was found from it. “Yet, the police searched the Gypsy again on October 12, 1998, and claimed to have found gun pellets and blackbuck hair. The vehicle was in possession of the forest department all this while, so there is the possibility that it was tampered with and the so-called evidences were planted,” said advocate Sushma Thara, Bora’s senior assistant.In two other poaching cases, the high court had found corroborative evidences like finding pellets and deer hair in the Gypsy or the recovery of the weapon as unreliable, but the trial court did not accept it saying that these cases were of different dates (nights of September 26-27 and 28-29, 1998).“The fact is, while the dates were different, the documents and other evidences like the FSL report cited in all the three poaching cases were the same. So, when the high court found the same evidences unreliable, there was no reason for the trial court to rely on them. In fact, the high court’s findings are binding on the trial court,” Bora said.The senior lawyer also pointed out that Salman had never misused bail conditions though he was out on bail for nearly 20 years during the trial of the Kankani poaching case.“Neither is the postmortem report in favour of the prosecution nor is its eyewitness reliable. There are no corroborative evidences as these have been already dealt with and turned down by the high court,” Bora told TOI.In response to a question, he added, “I will not argue for bail on the ground that projects worth several crore rupees are dependent on Salman.”

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