MUMBAI: Salman Khan’s ‘Hit-and-Run’ case was allotted to a Sessions Judge who will also hear Salman’s appeal challenging the Magistrate’s order summoning the charge of ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ which is punishable for up to 10 years in jail.

The actor’s lawyer Ashok Mundargi pleaded to the court that that new charge of culpable homicide as well as retrial be heard by same judge. Therefore, the hearing was shifted to March 11, 2013. Additional public prosecutor Nazirali H Shaikh said he had no objection to the matters being clubbed together.

Principal Sessions Judge, Swapna Joshi, assigned Salman’s case to Sessions Judge U. B. Hejib. However, the date of the hearing isn’t fixed yet as U.B. Hejib hasn’t yet received the papers regarding the case. Once the papers are transferred the Judge will issue a notice to the Bollywood actor and fix a date for the hearing.

In his appeal, Salman contended that the magistrate had erred in raising the charge of  ‘Culpable Homicide’ not amounting to murder (section 304 part II IPC) in the ‘Hit-and-Run’ case of 2002, terming it as ‘bad in law’. Earlier, Salman was tried by the magistrate under lesser charge of “death caused by negligence” (section 304 A IPC), for which the maximum punishment is of two years in jail. But, after inspecting 17 witnesses, the magistrate came to the decision that the culpable homicide charge was made out against the actor and transferred the case to the sessions court for a retrial.

Salman’s lawyer, Ashok Mundargi said: “The magistrate’s order was erroneous, bad in law and contrary to evidence on record. The magistrate failed to appreciate that he (Salman) had neither the intention (to kill people) nor the knowledge that his rash and negligent driving would kill a person and cause injury to four others.”

On 28 September 2008, a Land Cruiser allegedly driven by Salman Khan, crushed a group of people sleeping on the pavement outside a Bakery in Suburban Bandra, the crash killed one person and injured four others.