BMW case - Court dismisses Nanda's plea

The Delhi HC dismisses the plea of Sanjeev Nanda, prime accused in a case of road accident in New Delhi in 1999 and allows the trial court to summon eyewitness Sunil Kulkarni for deposition.

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday dismissed the plea of Sanjeev Nanda, prime accused in a case of road accident in New Delhi in 1999 in which six people were killed, and allowed the trial court to summon eyewitness Sunil Kulkarni for deposition.

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Justice S Ravinder Bhat said the subordinate court did not err in summoning the witness for second deposition.

Nanda had approached the high court after the trial court on March 19 had allowed two applications filed by the prosecution seeking permission to take Nanda's blood sample and to summon Kulkarni for testimony.

The issue of collecting of the blood sample and sending it for a forensic test would be decided by the trial court judge, said the court.

On Sep 30, 1999, Kulkarni was dropped by the prosecution from being examined after two other eyewitnesses Manoj Mallik and Hari Shankar turned hostile in the case.

Senior advocate RK Anand, appearing for Nanda, argued that the prosecution had dropped the witness after the court's approval and that order of the court could not be reviewed.

Accepting that dropping Kulkarni as a prosecution witness was a mistake committed by the police, public prosecutor IU Khan said there was nothing wrong in summoning him again.

Nanda, grandson of former Indian Navy chief SM Nanda, along with three others had allegedly killed six people including three police personnel in a raod accident in Lodhi Road area in the capital Jan 10, 1999.

The prosecution alleged that Nanda, who was driving his BMW car, was in an inebriated state along with his friends Manik Kapoor and Sidharth Gupta at the time of the accident.