Advocate ML Sharma, who had represented the five accused in the Delhi gang-rape case, shot into notoriety recently when a documentary on the case quoted him saying, “There is no place for women in Indian culture.” And he now seems to have inveigled himself into the Salman Khan case.
A couple of months ago, as the judgment day for the case approached, a prominent talking point was the testimony of police constable Ravindra Patil, which was instrumental in the court awarding a five year jail term to the actor. The sentencing came eight years after Patil’s demise under circumstances that still flummox those tracking the case. Two months after the Bombay High Court suspended the lower court’s sentence, Patil’s family moved court through Sharma, alleging that his death happened under ‘mysterious circumstances’ and holding the actor responsible for it. The petition was rejected by the High Court the same day.
Patil was appointed as Khan’s bodyguard in 2002. After the incident, he gave a statement to the police of having seen the actor drive under the influence of alcohol. But once the case reached court, he didn’t show up for five consecutive hearings, after which he was declared absconding, suspended from the force and arrested; he subsequently lost his life to drug-resistant tuberculosis.
Sharma’s petition alleges a conspiracy in which Patil was ‘prohibited’ from appearing in court and poisoned in jail. “There are 457 different kinds of poisons. Some cause instant deaths while others, like the one given to Patil in custody, cause slow death,” says Sharma. Asked why it took eight years for these claims to surface, Sharma says that it was because no lawyer was brave enough to take up Patil’s case.
Though his petition has been thrown out, Sharma says he is going to go in for an appeal. “I will be moving the Supreme Court now.”
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