Kurla BEST accident: More drove rashly, endangered lives, says sessions court

Mumbai court denies bail to Sanjay More, driver of a bus that killed nine in Kurla, citing reckless driving and ongoing investigation.

Mumbai: Sanjay More, the driver of the BEST bus which ploughed through numerous pedestrians and vehicles on a busy street in Kurla West on December 9 killing nine persons, was driving the vehicle in a rash and negligent manner, the sessions court observed while rejecting his bail application on January 10. The order copy was uploaded on the court’s website on Tuesday.

Sanjay More

More was driving very rashly “irrespective of the fact that the said road was being used by several others...to endanger their lives”, sessions judge VM Pathade observed while refusing him bail.

The incident had occurred at around 9.30pm on December 9 last year, when a 12-metre-long Olectra electric bus—the longest in BEST’s fleet—went out of control on SG Barve Marg and travelled around 200 metres before hitting the boundary wall of a housing society. More, who was behind the wheels, was employed as driver with a wet-lease operator contracted by BEST, and he had transitioned from driving manual vehicles to automatic ones after just three training sessions although BEST’s standard operating procedures mandated a six-week training period.

Brake failure and mechanical faults had caused the accident, More had told police after his arrest. But the regional transport office (RTO) subsequently found that the bus was mechanically sound. More also underwent psychological evaluation and blood tests, which showed that he was neither mentally ill nor under the influence of alcohol at the time of the incident.

More’s advocates, Samadhan Sulane and Yogita Gade, argued that the report issued by the RTO was unreliable since it was not established that the officer who prepared the report was an expert in analysing the condition of the vehicle. The accident took place due to brake failure and lack of proper maintenance of the vehicle, they said, claiming that More was being made into a scapegoat despite having 20 years of experience as a driver.

The prosecution provided details about casualties in the accident to the court while strongly opposing More’s bail plea. It said that More, who was employed with ‘MP Transport and Hansa Transport’, a wet-lease operator with BEST, had covered 728 kilometres between December 1, when he started driving the electric bus and December 9, when the incident occurred. Citing the public outcry against More and the pending investigation, the prosecution requested the court to reject his bail plea.

The court considered the report issued by the RTO regarding the fitness of the vehicle and observed that there was no material to prove that the accident occurred due to poor maintenance or brake failure.

“Thus, considering the gravity and seriousness of the crime, the punishment provided for the offences, which is imprisonment for life or imprisonment which may extend to ten years, the period of detention of the applicant/ accused which is just around one month, the investigation is yet to complete, etc, I do not find it is a fit case to exercise discretion in favour of the applicant/ accused to enlarge him on bail as sought for,” the court said while rejecting More’s bail plea.