Jodhpur court rejects Salman Khan's plea in arms case

A local court today rejected an application of actor Salman Khan seeking permission to summon two former officials of Mumbai as witness in a case filed against him under Arms Act.
The case pertains to contravention of the Arms Act by using expired licence guns to allegedly poach black bucks in Jodhpur on October 1, 1998.
A similar plea of the actor was earlier rejected by the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate.
Upholding the order of the court of CJM, District and Session's judge Manoj Kumar Vyas rejected the revision petition moved by Khan's counsel Hastimal Saraswat stating that the licence of the arms used in the said incident was not expired then.

Khan's counsel had produced a notice issued by the then Deputy Commissioner and District Magistrate of Greater Mumbai Dalbir Singh on September 29, 1999 asking the actor why his licence should not be cancelled.
Saraswat had argued that since the incident of poaching had occurred in 1998, the licence of Khan's arms was well in force, citing the notice by the officials in 1999.

"And for this, we had made a plea before the court to allow us to summon the officer, the notice issuing authority, as witness in the case with the relevant documents," he said.
This argument was opposed by the government counsel who said the notice was meant for suspension of the licence and not pertained to the expiry of the licence, which had expired long before the incident took place.

The court had completed the hearing of the arguments on January 6 and reserved the order.