New Delhi: A Delhi court Saturday framed
charges against Utsav Bhasin, accused of ramming his BMW car
into a motorcycle killing a man in 2008, under a harsher penal
provision which may attract life imprisonment as the maximum
sentence.
"There are prima facie sufficient evidence to frame
charges under Sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to
murder), 279 (driving rashly which could endanger human life)
and 338 (causing grievous hurt) of the IPC," Additional
Sessions Judge Pinki said.
Bhasin, the son of a Haryana-based industrialist, was
driving his BMW car when he had allegedly hit the two-wheeler
on Moolchand flyover in South Delhi, killing Anuj Singh, the
motorcyclist, on September 11, 2008. A journalist of a TV
channel was also injured in the incident.
The court rejected the plea of senior advocate Ramesh
Gupta, counsel for Bhasin, that the accused he cannot be
charged under Section 304 of the IPC, which prescribes life
sentence as the maximum punishment, as he neither had the
knowledge nor the intention to commit the alleged offence.
The accused, at best, should be charged under Section
304A (causing death by rash and negligent act) of the IPC,
which prescribes two years simple imprisonment or fine or both
as punishment, the defence counsel had submitted.
To buttress the arguments, Gupta had also cited the Delhi
High Court judgement in the 1998 sensational BMW hit-and-run
case in which hotelier Sanjeev Nanda was awarded two years
jail term as sentence.
Paving the way to start trial in the case, the court has
now fixed the matter on July 21 for recording of statements of
prosecution witnesses.
Earlier, police had filed the chargesheet against
Bhasin under Section 304 of IPC.
PTI
