Violation of rules led to biker’s death says Mumbai Sessions court; denies bail to a doctor – Times of India

MUMBAI: Observing that due to violations of traffic rules by the accused, the victim through no fault lost his life, Mumbai Sessions court denied bail to a resident doctor arrested and booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Gamdevi police station had registered the case against Dr Rihan Rashid, 27, following the death of a biker, Aditya Desai, hit allegedly by the doctor’s car coming in the wrong direction at Kemps Corner bridge at 1.55 am on March 28.
The victim’s mother through advocate Vinita Dandekar opposed bail as did APP Abhijeet Gondwal for state.
Gondwal said the doctor who works at JJ Hospital was “driving his car on the extreme right side without any reason’’ and had earlier visited a bar near Kalaghoda with friends where they purchased 1500 ml of beer, six large vodkas, three small whisky, four vodka shots, revealed probe. The police is awaiting a forensic lab report on his blood sample.
“As the applicant and his friend had purchased stupefying substance -vodka etc–there is every possibility that he may be under the influence,” said the additional Sessions Judge R M Sadrani in his April 26 order rejecting Dr Rashid’s bail plea argued by advocate Amin Solkar and accepting Dandekar’s plea of possibility of tampering of evidence if released.
Besides there is nothing on record to show that the doctor –working at JJ hospital–presumed that the road was one way, it was 45 meter wide with markings to show a division, said the court. The court also observed a “normal conscious person is expected to drive his vehicle on the left side motorists are expected to drive on the left side” and accident took place on extreme right.
Police arrested Rashid on March 30, based on an FIR filed on March 28, 2022.
The police case is that the biker was on his way from the Kemps Corner Bridge towards Babulnath Road, while the doctor came from the opposite and collided with the motorcycle, resulting in the biker’s fall from the bridge and succumbing to serious injuries at JJ hospital, where Rashid and his friends admitted him immediately.
Solkar seeking bail said there was no proper demarcation on the road by the BMC, on the bridge and said Rashid was “new to the road’’ and under the impression it was a one-way. Solkar said Rashid and his friends are all JJ doctors proceeding towards Worli Sea Link and had no intention to cause the accident, and it was a “pure accident’’ at best attracting a bailable offence of negligence under section 304A of IPC.
Dandekar said when victim was under treatment, his friends were with him and two doctors spoke of visiting the spot, and getting suspicious, his (victim’s) friends followed the doctors and prepared a video of one of them opening the car door and removing something from it. She said it amounted to tampering of evidence and if released there is possibility of evidence tampering.
The Judge observed that statements of the other doctors is yet to be recorded before a magistrate. “These witnesses are close friends of the applicant, who were travelling in the same vehicle. There is every possibility of tampering with the evidence, if the applicant is released on bail,’’ said the order.