Mumbai BEST bus accident: Accused driver seeks bail, blames congested road; says no criminal intent
Mumbai (PTI): The BEST bus driver involved in an accident in which four people were killed last month has sought bail claiming the road was crowded and encroached upon by hawkers, causing him to lose control of the vehicle.
The driver, in his plea filed before the sessions court, asserted he did not cause the accident intentionally and has not committed any crime in the past.
The Olectra Greentech-make electric bus of Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) undertaking crashed into pedestrians near Bhandup railway station on the night of December 29, killing four people and injuring 10 others.
Driver Santosh Sawant (52) was later arrested by Bhandup police and is currently in judicial custody. He was held under relevant sections of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Motor Vehicles Act for negligent driving.
Sawant claimed he is innocent and has been falsely implicated due to the unfortunate nature of the incident.
Narrating the circumstances of the accident, he said the road was narrow, crowded, and encroached upon by hawkers.
Sawant claimed he attempted to save a rickshaw as well as pedestrians who suddenly appeared, causing him to lose control of the bus.
There was no criminal intent, he said in his plea, which will be next heard on January 13.
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Kerala: ED files money laundering case in Sabarimala gold loss case
Thiruvananthapuram/New Delhi (PTI): The Enforcement Directorate on Friday filed a money laundering case in the Sabarimala gold loss case in Kerala, official sources said.
The federal probe agency's Kochi zonal office has registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), an ED equivalent of a police FIR, under various sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), they said.
The politically sensitive case is already being investigated by a state special investigation team (SIT) under the supervision of the Kerala High Court.
In December, the high court had allowed the ED to undertake an independent investigation into the case after it dismissed objections raised by the SIT against sharing the case information with the central agency.
The SIT is probing two cases related to the gold loss incident and has arrested 11 people so far. The latest to be arrested by the SIT was Kandararu Rajeevaru, the chief priest of the Lord Ayyappa temple.
The other prominent persons arrested in the case by the SIT are Bengaluru-based businessman and prime accused Unnikrishnan Potty and former Travancore Devaswom Board president A Padmakumar.
The ED is expected to soon look for more evidence, question the accused, and it may also go on to attach certain assets of those involved if it finds that they generated "proceeds of crime", according to the officials.
The probe is related to a series of irregularities, including official misconduct, administrative lapses and a criminal conspiracy to misappropriate the gold from the various artefacts of the Lord Ayyappa shrine.
The investigation by the SIT, and now by the ED, is related to the loss of gold from the gold-cladded copper plates of the Dwarapalaka (guardian deity) idols and the door frames of the Sreekovil (sanctum sanctorum) of the temple.
The SIT has informed the High Court that its probe found "a series of serious official misconduct and administrative lapses on the part of the Devaswom officials right from the initial correspondence till the handing over of the door frame plates, connected plates, Dwarapalaka plates and pillar plates to Unnikrishnan Potty without proper authorisation".
It further said in its statement that Govardhan, Pankaj Bhandari, the CEO of Chennai-based Smart Creations, which carried out the electroplating of the artefacts from the temple, Potty and the other accused hatched a criminal conspiracy with malicious intention to misappropriate the gold cladded on the copper plates in and around the shrine.
"It is found during the investigation that all these criminal activities were part of a large conspiracy and an organised crime committed by the accused persons.
"They had a larger plan to dismantle other gold-clad items on the Sabarimala Sreekovil and to extract the gold from them for misappropriation," it said.
