In major relief for actor Shah Rukh Khan, the Gujarat high court has stayed proceedings against him in a case pertaining to the death of one person at Vadodara railway junction during the promotion of his film earlier this year.
Khan had travelled to Vadodara by train to promote his film Raees, which was released in January. The ensuing chaos at the station led to the death of 45-year-old Farid Khan, who suffered cardiac arrest. After a brief hearing today, Justice AJ Desai stayed proceedings till 25 September.
Local Congress politician Jitendra Solanki had moved an application before a magisterial court seeking a first information report (FIR) against Khan and others who were part of the film's promotion.
Solanki had earlier approached the police to lodge an FIR against Khan under sections 336, 337 and 338 of the Indian Penal Code for acts endangering the life or personal safety of others and causing simple and grievous hurts to them by such acts, but the police had refused to oblige.
The railway police, which was investigating the matter, had later issued summons to Khan, but the summons was quashed by the high court which rejected the government counsel’s argument that Khan had thrown a T-shirt and soft balls into the crowd that had gathered on the platform, resulting in a stampede.
Khan had boarded the August Kranti Rajdhani Express from Mumbai Central for Delhi as part of his promotional campaign, called ‘Raees by Rail’. He reached Surat in the evening and arrived in Vadodara at about 10:30pm. A crowd of some 15,000 people had gathered at the station for a glimpse of the superstar. In the ensuing chaos Farid Khan suffered a heart attack and died.