The Gujarat High Court has quashed the criminal case filed against actor Shah Rukh Khan with regard to the alleged stampede that took place during the promotions of Raees in 2017.
The case dates back to when Khan was promoting his Hindi film Raees, and a stampede took place at the Vadodara railway station, leading to a person’s death. Khan was reportedly travelling from Mumbai to Delhi by train at the time and during a halt at the Vadodara station, a huge crowd had gathered around to see the actor. Khan had waved at the crowd and thrown ‘t-shirts’ and ‘smiley balls’ to them. This allegedly led to the stampede, as a result of which several were injured and one person died. The situation was controlled only by the intervention of the police.
Following the incident, a local politician named Jitendra Solanki filed a complaint with the Gujarat police against Khan. An FIR was registered under Sections 336, 337, and 338 of the Indian Penal Code for endangering the safety of self or others and Sections 145, 150, 152, 154 and 155 (1) (a) of the Railways Act, 1989.
Khan had then approached the Gujarat High Court to quash the FIR registered against him.
During the previous hearing of his plea in February, the Gujarat High Court had observed that it was preferable for the actor to apologise rather than to face trial in the case.
Prior to Wednesday’s hearing, the legal heirs of the deceased person, Farhana Farid Khan Pathan, had moved the High Court seeking to be impleaded as respondents in the same complaint.
However, the court observed that since no independent complaint was filed by them, the court order was not challenged and the process was not issued for offences punishable under Section 304A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC. The court ruled that since no actions were taken in the past five years, it would not allow them to be added as respondents in the case.
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The High Court also noted that as per the investigation report, the doctor had stated that the victim’s death was caused by a cardiac arrest and that the family of the deceased had refused a post-mortem.
Further, Khan’s counsel argued that there were multiple causes for the incident and none of the actor’s actions could be termed as the “proximate cause” for the stampede at the station, emphasising that there was a lack of evidence against him. Khan’s counsel also argued that neither the chaotic situation nor the actor’s negligence was the reason behind the death of the person.
The court thus revoked the case against Khan, noting that his actions during the promotions were neither extremely high in negligence or recklessness, nor were they the effective cause of the alleged incident.