Hit and Miss

‘‘There is no evidence whatsoever that Sanjeev was driving the vehicle,’’ says Ramesh Gupta, Nanda’s lawyer. ‘‘The only evidence available are some broken bits of the BMW numberplate.’’

With the prosecution case’s weak, the Delhi High Court had no hesitation in granting bail to Nanda in October 1999 after keeping him in custody for 10 months. While on bail, Nanda filed an application to go abroad for higher studies. A personal bond of Rs 5 crore was set up in February 2002, and Nanda was on his way to the US for an MBA course. He has resurfaced recently in the capital circuit as the managing director of a leading city hotel.

In legal circles, the BMW case is cited as a classic instance of ‘‘witnesses turning hostile’’. The sole survivor of the accident, one Manoj, startled the entire country by stating during the trial that it might have been a truck that ran them over, not a BMW. Star ‘‘eye-witness’’ Sunil Kulkarni, also turned hostile within eight months of the accident.

TO think that the chargesheet, when filed in 1999, looked pretty watertight. While Nanda and his friend Manik Kapoor were charged with culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 of the IPC), and causing grievous injury, the third friend Siddhartha Gupta, his father Rajeev Gupta and domestic help Bhola and Shyam Singh were accused of tampering with evidence. (Siddhartha was later discharged.)

The chargesheet said that after running over six people, Nanda stopped the car 50 metres away, stepped out and looked around for a while. Though the injured were crying out for help, he reportedly ignored them and drove away.

Two persons were allegedly entangled in the rear portion of the car. ‘‘Instead of helping them, he sped away in the vehicle, resulting in the death of the two persons at the spot,’’ the chargesheet said.
Nanda then allegedly drove to 50, Golf Links, his friend Siddhartha’s house, and parked the car in the driveway. Siddhartha’s father Rajeev and the two domestics helped hide the evidence, the chargesheet said.

Five years after the incident, the sessions court recorded Nanda’s statement. While defense lawyers deny any charge of a delayed trial, records show that in 2001, Nanda himself had sought closing of the evidence of the prosecution witnesses on the grounds of slow trial.

Deposing before the court of ASJ S L Bayana in January this year, Nanda denied any connection with the incident, but accepted that he had had beer on that night. The BMW, however, was not his, nor was he driving it, he said.

Though the statement of the other accused is currently being recorded, in public opinion the BMW accident is yet another case that has run out of steam in convicting the accused.