Bail plea in BMW hit-and-run case
put off to March 17
The Delhi high court today issued a notice to the state government on the bail application of Sanjiv Nanda, main accused in the BMW case in which five persons, including two policemen, were mowed down by a speeding car on January 10.
Justice J B Goel directed the administration to file its reply by March 17, the next date of hearing.
Nanda had earlier moved bail applications before Metropolitan Magistrate V K Sharma and Additional Sessions Judge S C Mittal. Both rejected the appeals.
He is now in judicial custody at Tihar jail.
Senior counsel R K Anand, appearing for Nanda, grandson of former naval chief Admiral S M Nanda, flatly denied that his client had committed an offence. He claimed that the investigating agency [the police] had used all kinds of tactics to make out a case against Nanda.
Challenging the prosecution's act of charging Nanda under section 302-A (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code, Anand argued that even assuming he was involved in the accident, Nanda could only be charged under section 304-A (causing death by a rash and negligent act), which is a bailable offence. The dead and injured persons were not known to Nanda and he had no animosity against them, Anand said.
He said Nanda was not produced before a magistrate within 24 hours of his arrest. Anand also accused the police of torturing him in custody and not allowing him to meet his lawyers and relatives.
Moreover, he contended, the first information report in the case was registered belatedly and is full of "concocted facts (sic) fabricated by the police" to create evidence against the applicant.
Anand claimed that when the police realised that the case made out against Nanda would at most allow a charge under section 304-A, they "introduced" a witness five days after the offence was committed.
The witness has stated facts that are nowhere in the case and has been continuously improving upon his statement in the course of the investigation, he said.
The counsel said the investigation of the case is almost over and there is no likelihood of Nanda being able to tamper with any evidence. Only the result from the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory is now awaited.
He further assured the court that Nanda would join the investigation as and when required. He has "deep roots in [Delhi] society" and belongs to a very respectable family and there is no question of his jumping bail, Anand argued.
UNI
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