Salman Khan’s appeal hearing deferred to Jul 17

An Indian court today deferred till July 17 the hearing on Bollywood super star Salman Khan's plea challenging his sentence of five years in prison for poaching endangered black bucks.

The District and Sessions Court of Jodhpur, Rajasthan, deferred the hearing on an appeal by his lawyer Maesh Bora, our New Delhi correspondent reports.

Salman, 51, was present in the court today but the actor would not have to be present at the next hearing as the court granted him nonappearance permission, public prosecutor P Ram Vishnoi said.

Today's hearing lasted for less than 10 minutes. 

Salman had earlier got permission from the court to leave the country for film shooting.

On April 5, Khan was sentenced to five years in jail and after spending two nights he was freed on bail.

A trial court found Khan him guilty of killing two blackbucks in September 1998 at Kankani village, Jodhpur, during the shooting of "Hum Saath Saath Hain".  The court acquitted all the other accused actors Saif Ali Khan, Tabu, Neelam and Sonali Bendre and local resident Dushyant Singh.