KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Thursday granted anticipatory bail to an Additional District and Sessions Judge booked as the registered owner of the Mercedes-Benz that allegedly ran down a 55-year-old scooterist at Cheranalloor here, noting that he had cooperated with a probe that has already questioned him for six hours and searched his house.
Justice Kauser Edappagath allowed the plea after hearing the state and the judge's counsel. The detailed order, and its conditions, are awaited.
The court asked why the judge needed to be arrested or interrogated again when he was already cooperating. "Moreover, his house was searched. What more evidence do you need to collect now? The High Court could be approached the moment you feel that he is not cooperating," it said, and questioned why those opposing the plea doubted that a serving judicial officer would cooperate. "He is under the supervision of the High Court."
The judge's counsel submitted that the teenager had taken the car without his father's knowledge.
The judge was arraigned under Section 199A of the Motor Vehicles Act, which makes a vehicle's registered owner or a minor's guardian liable for a traffic offence committed by a juvenile in that vehicle, unless the owner can show the offence took place without his knowledge or despite due diligence. The investigation has since moved from Cheranalloor police station to the District Crime Branch.
On October 29, the court gave the judge interim protection from arrest and directed him to cooperate, holding that as a serving judicial officer there was "no question" he would abscond or evade the process of law. It remarked orally then that it could not succumb to public opinion because "the law has to be strictly followed." The victim's family has filed an impleading petition in the matter, which is pending.
The crash: Jayabalakrishnan, 55, who ran a roadside eatery, was riding home on his scooter in the early hours of October 25 when the car hit him from behind on Container Road near Marapparambu, on the stretch towards Kalamassery. He died at the spot. The car is registered in the judge's name; the police allege his 17-year-old son was at the wheel.
The first FIR was under Section 106(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, causing death by negligence, and the teenager was released on station bail that evening. Protests by the victim's family and local activists outside Cheranalloor police station followed. The minor was taken back into custody and booked under Section 105 of the BNS, culpable homicide not amounting to murder, then produced before the Juvenile Justice Board, which granted him bail. The state has moved to cancel that bail. On October 30, a court ordered the state to remove the minor's identifying details from its plea, holding that the disclosure violated Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice Act.
Fallout: the station house officer and three other Cheranalloor police personnel were suspended on October 27, and Kochi city police commissioner Kaliraj Mahesh Kumar was removed the next day over alleged lapses in the probe. He was posted on Thursday as Inspector General (Crime Branch-II) with additional charge of DIG, ATS. R Nishanthini, a 2008-batch IPS officer, replaced him as Kochi city police chief. The state home minister told the Assembly that the police had committed a "grave error" by not invoking stringent charges at the outset.
Bhadrakeerthy, the victim's daughter, said the family would keep fighting: "I will not allow the judge or his minor son to escape responsibility for my father's death."
This is Kochi's second fatal crash involving a young driver in a luxury car this month. On October 11, a Mini Cooper allegedly driven at high speed by 19-year-old Suhail Sajeev hit a scooter near Nedumbassery, killing three salespersons.
(With inputs from PTI and media reports)
