New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the decision of the Gujarat High Court quashing a criminal case filed against superstar Shah Rukh Khan and others, who were booked for causing a stampede in 2017 at the Vadodara Railway station while promoting his film.

A bench of Justices Ajay Rastogi and C T Ravikumar dismissed the appeal filed by an original complainant Jitendra Madhubhai Solanki alias Pappu, who had challenged the decision of the High Court dated April 27, 2022. The bench said it is not inclined to interfere with the order of high court.

Senior advocate Luthra, Siddharth who represented Khan along with advocate Ruby Singh Ahuja, and advocate Sandeep Kapur contended the high court had rightly quashed the case and passed detailed verdict after dealing with all the aspects.

The high court had said in its order: “In so far as offences under the Indian Penal Code are concerned,. . . the allegations made in the complaint, even if they are taken at their face value and accepted in their entirety, in the considered opinion of this Court do not prima facie constitute any offence or make out a case against petitioner (Shah Rukh Khan)”.

It had said the act on part of the actor, during the promotion of his film ‘Raees’ could not be termed to be so grossly negligent or reckless, neither could an act on part of Khan be treated as the proximate and efficient cause of the unruly incidents at the railway station.

“Thus in the considered opinion of this Court, the allegations made in the complaint even if they are not controverted and furthermore, the evidence collected in support of the uncontroverted allegations do not disclose commission of an offence”, the high court had said in the order.