Superstar Salman Khan was convicted by the Jodhpur court in the 1998 blackbuck poaching case. The other four actors Saif Ali Khan, Sonali Bendre, Tabu and Neelam Kothari were acquitted.
The court delivered a sentence of five years imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000 to Salman.
The maximum sentence is six years, but Salman’s lawyers requested a minimal sentence and early probation, while the prosecution was asking for the maximum quantum of punishment. If Salman had been sentenced to less than three years, he could have been immediately granted bail and given a month to appeal his sentence at a higher court. However, since he was given a sentence of more than three years, he would be taken into custody and be transferred to Jodhpur Central Jail, pending further appeals.
Salman Khan’s bail application in the Sessions Court is scheduled to be heard on Friday morning, which means he has to spend Thursday night in Jodhpur Central Jail.
As we know 2018 and the coming year are very important for Salman’s professional career as the actor will be working on several big-budget films, including Dabangg 3, Kick 2 and Bharat. There have been a few reports doing the rounds that a lot of money is at stake for Salman’s films.
However, trade analyst Komal Nahta said that there is not much involvement of money in Salman’s Dabangg 3, Kick 2 and Bharat as they all are in pre-production stage and his team has only announced those projects, but Race 3 will definitely have to face the consequences.
“If it’s less than three years he has one month to be out on bail. In that one month, he has to complete 10 per cent of shooting of ‘Race 3’. It will not take a month also so he has enough time to complete the film. But if it’s more than three years which is very unlikely then ‘Race 3’ will be stuck,” Nahta told News18.com before the announcement of the sentence.
Race 3, directed by Remo D’Souza, is the third installment in hit film franchise Race. The film will feature Jacqueline Fernandez, Anil Kapoor, Daisy Shah, Saqib Saleem and Bobby Deol, besides Salman. The cast has recently completed the Abu Dhabi schedule of the film.
Salman was reportedly going to start the shoot of Dabbang 3 post Remo D’Souza’s film. Actor-producer and his brother Arbaaz Khan had also revealed that they had already started the scripting process for the film.
Talking about the same, Nahta said, “Those projects are not bothered about because only people’s time has been engaged. There’s not much involvement of money whether it’s ‘Bharat’ or ‘Dabangg 3’ or ‘Kick 2’. The only film where money has been invested is ‘Race 3’ (and that shouldn’t be a problem unless he is convicted for more than three years) because if that happens then he will not even be getting bail and the film will get stuck.”