No sufficient ground, says court while discharging 2 in 2024 BEST accident case

On December 9, 2024, Sanjay More, driver of an electric BEST bus, allegedly lost control over the vehicle, which hit pedestrians and other vehicles on a congested road near Kurla railway station, leading to nine deaths. More remains in custody and will face trial, while the court discharged Ramesh Katigandla, managing director of Evey Trans (MUM) Pvt. Ltd., and Suryawanshi, CEO of Morya Trans India Pvt. Ltd. No other official was named an accused in the case.

The two had submitted that the BEST and its operations staff who are responsible for the functioning and operations of the transport authority were made witnesses, while they were named as accused on charges that their “negligence” in appointment and training to More had caused the accident.

Police claimed that More was issued a dummy check number belonging to a driver who had left the service and that his details were never updated in the system, pointing to irregularities.

The court said that entering a dummy check number is not a crime as it does not denote the identity of the driver but is used only to track routes, based on which payment is determined between BEST and the two companies, in contract with the transport authority for wet lease of electric buses.

Additional sessions judge Avinash P Kulkarni accepted the contention of the two accused that the dummy check number was provided by BEST. The two also claimed that the relevant documents were scrutinised by the BEST administration and More was appointed after he underwent training at the BEST Dindoshi depot.  More was given priority as he had been a BEST driver for nearly four years. At the time of the accident, More was on contract and undergone training for 72 hours in driving an electric bus.

The court held that no indication was shown that the two discharged officials had an intention to cause liability. “The ITMS (Intelligent Traffic Management System) is for vehicle and route tracking; it is not used as the identity of the driver. It serves as the identification for the routes. The check number must be uploaded by BEST into the BEST ITMS portal, and only then can it be used in the bus,” the court said. The court held that the portal belongs to BEST and the check number must also therefore be uploaded by the authority.

“A dummy check number is not the identity of the driver. The identity of the driver is his Motor Vehicle License and his Badge. The check number is used for measuring and tracking routes, and for determining payment based on the routes and schedules. Entering a dummy check number is not a crime,” the court said.

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