#SalmanKhanVerdict: How Raaj Kumar's son got away

It's a circus out there... The brazen tweets that indignantly protested the imminent imprisonment of a film star convicted of culpable homicide, the raucous celebrations of peers and fans when he was granted instant bail, the Pavlovian chorus of "But he's done so much for people, you can't send him to jail!"

The distasteful facts of the Salman Khan hit-and-run case remind me of an uncannily similar one that I covered two decades ago. Today, the existence of 24x7 news television and social media exerts at least some public pressure that causes hit-and-run offences to get on to the judicial tracks, whatever the attempts to derail justice. Back then, there was nothing. The case I'm talking about - that of Puru Raaj Kumar, aspiring actor and son of iconic star Raaj Kumar - is a truly frightening example of the lacunae in, and brazen manipulation of, the criminal justice system and its devastation of a poor man.

One late night in December 1993, Puru crashed his car into a pavement at SV Road in Bandra, Mumbai, killing three people and seriously injuring one. A few days after the accident, I got in touch with the police, lawyers and the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) that gives accident victims compensation. I also met the accident's sole survivor, 50-year-old Abdul Rahim Qureishi, a carpenter whose leg was crushed and had to be amputated.

The interaction with the police was telling: after the reluctant investigation officer told me he needed his superior's permission to talk, I was asked to come to Bandra Police Station where the DCP had convened about ten officers. My most basic queries were stonewalled here. What was the reason for the car going out of control? Sorry, can't tell. Was Puru drunk? He wasn't smelling of alcohol. Was a blood test done? Since he wasn't smelling of alcohol, there was no need. And so on. When, exasperatedly, I cited the Right to Information Act developed countries had, the DCP retorted that he could quote the Official Secrets Act (pertaining to defence secrets and the country's security) to me. I was speechless. By then of course, Puru had already been bailed out for Rs 950 after spending just one night in police custody.

A year later, I embarked on a follow-up to see how far the case had progressed and whether Qureishi had got his interim compensation. I discovered that he hadn't got a rupee, and, unable to work any longer, had become a beggar to support his large family. In tears, he told me how his artificial leg made functioning in certain situations very difficult - how he needed to take someone along every single time he had to squat in a loo. It was heartbreaking.

The court case, meanwhile, hadn't begun despite two dates being fixed for the hearing. The reason: summons had not been served on the accused. The court's clerical staff first tried to blame the police, then nonchalantly told me they'd "run out of summons forms". (To date I believe their actions were triggered by something more than laxity.) Subsequently, the court remained closed for nine months because the government hadn't appointed a magistrate. Then came the master coup - using a Supreme Court judgement that, in a bid to ease the courts' backlog, had ordered the closing of long-pending petty cases, Puru's lawyer, VP Vashi, got the case closed, describing it as "a case relating to a traffic offence". The gambit worked till the SC realised its judgement was being generally exploited, and the case came back on board.

When the court reopened in July 1996 with magistrate VK Holambe Patil at its helm, Puru's case was wrapped up in two hearings. He was let off with paying a fine of Rs 25,000 to the families of the dead persons and the princely sum of Rs 500 to Abdul Rahim Qureishi. Five hundred rupees in lieu of the loss of a leg and livelihood - it would have been absurd if it wasn't so horrifying.

I met Holambe Patil (those days lionised by the media for "taking on" Bal Thackeray in some case; nine years later, he was asked to quit his post by a vigilance committee of the Bombay High Court) to ask him the logic behind his judgement. He was full of beans. "You must be wondering how someone as strict as me gave this kind of judgement, no?" he said. And then went into the details of his order, where he had actually tried to show how Puru couldn't be put into jail because of two old high court judgements that had overturned lower court convictions in hit-and-run cases. One concerned an actress, the other a businessman who was directed by the HC judge to pay compensation to the victim's family because his staying behind bars "served no purpose". Holambe Patil had masterfully blended the two to serve up his own hotchpotch; he told me that the verdict in an actor's case should serve as another actor's precedent, and if the high court had delivered these two judgments they had to be followed, otherwise it would amount to contempt of court. I had never heard anything more senseless in my life.

I also asked the public prosecutor on the case how he had not challenged the Rs 500 compensation for Qureishi. His reply: since Puru had pleaded guilty, there was no question of recording evidence or calling witnesses, thus no one was aware that a man had been maimed in the accident. Fittingly, the Maharashtra government did not go in appeal to a higher court. Puru Raaj Kumar continued to pursue his film career and a helpless Qureishi moved back to his village. He hasn't been heard of since.

Like Salman Khan, Puru too got ample high-society support. His father Raaj Kumar gave an interview to an eager-to-please Stardust journo, in which he lambasted my report and made insensitive statements about the accident victims. (The journo herself waxed eloquent about him and added her own delectable wisdom: "Just because people are rich doesn't mean they don't have a heart.") A senior film writer called to gently inform me that Puru was "a nice boy". A corporate big shot told me I should stop writing because Puru's rivals, who were jealous of the actor's "great talent", were gleeful about his troubles. Clearly, some people did not get the concept of justice then as they don't get it now.

The purpose of this piece is not to dig up old skeletons - it's a reflection on whether anything has changed at all in two decades. The trajectory of the Salman Khan case and the reactions to his trial and bail make me suspect not.