BMW accident case: Wrong to say car hit bike, claims accused driver

Gaganpreet Kaur, accused in the Dhaula Kuan BMW case, on Wednesday claimed through her counsel that her car did not hit the motorbike and she rushed the victim to the hospital within 24 minutes of the accident.

Judicial magistrate Ankit Garg was hearing the arguments on Kaur's bail.

Kaur, 38, was allegedly behind the wheel of the BMW car that rammed into the two-wheeler of a senior finance ministry official, leaving him dead and his wife grievously injured.

She has been remanded in judicial custody till September 27.

Referring to the FIR, her counsel stressed that the car hit the two-wheeler from behind but argued that the CCTV footage of the incident showed otherwise.

“Suddenly something came before the car, it hit the footpath, flipped over, turned turtle and then the motorcycle came and hit it, besides hitting a bus. It is wrong to say that the car hit the motorcycle,” he said.

Describing her actions after the accident as bonafide, the counsel said despite suffering injuries, she made her children, domestic help and husband sit on the footpath and tried to make frantic arrangements.

“The injured were taken to Nulife Hospital (in North Delhi's GTB Nagar) in around 23-24 minutes. Taking them to AIIMS or Venkateshwar Hospital would have taken 36 minutes. There was a 4 km or 12-minute difference for taking the injured to these two hospitals,” her counsel claimed.

Everything was alright when the injured were being taken to the hospital in a van but “things turned sour” when the man died, he added.

“The allegations are an afterthought. FIR has been registered after a delay of 10 hours with a beautiful statement that the car hit the motorcycle. At 1:39 PM I (Kaur) gave my phone to a person and asked him to call the PCR. I revealed my name to the injured woman. I could have run away. Kindly see my conduct right from the inception,” the counsel said.

He alleged that Section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of BNS was wrongly invoked as the intention to cause death was missing.

“I am in custody for 10 days. Special status in law has been provided to women. Statements have been recorded. I have cooperated with the investigation and provided my mobile phone, driving license, and medical documents. The triple test for bail is fulfilled,” the advocate said.

He said, in fact, Kaur's entire family were the “victims of the accident” as everything for them turned upside down after it.

The public prosecutor, on the contrary, said the victim's wife, who is the complainant in the case, never asked Kaur to take them to Venkateshwar Hospital but insisted on being taken to any nearby hospital.

“Before Nulife Hospital, there were several hospitals, AIIMS, Safdarjung, Base Hospital, and others. Nulife gave information to the police about the accident and death at 4:21 PM, three hours after. This is a hospital of the accused's relatives,” the prosecutor said.

He added, “I am not saying that the victim would have been definitely saved if taken to other hospitals. But the possibility of saving him was higher. Intention was not to save the injured, but to save themselves from legal proceedings by taking them to a relative's hospital."         There was “an omission to block medical aid” as the injured were not taken to a hospital, which was hardly two minutes away and that according to the Motor Vehicle Amendment Act, one was duty-bound to take the injured to the nearest hospital, he added.

The prosecutor argued BNS Section 105 was correctly invoked.

“The investigation is at a nascent stage. The complainant is medically critical. There is apprehension of evidence tampering,” the prosecutor said.

The judge then directed the investigating officer (IO) “to produce CCTV footage and all relevant documents” on September 25.

The court also sought the prosecution's reply on a plea by Kaur's counsel seeking the internet usage record of the van driver, who took the injured to Nulife, from 1.30 pm to 2.15 pm.

Deputy Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, Navjot Singh (52), who lived in Hari Nagar, succumbed to injuries after the accident on Ring Road near the Delhi Cantonment Metro station on the afternoon of September 14.

Singh, along with his wife, was returning home after visiting the Bangla Sahib Gurdwara.

The FIR was registered under Sections 281 (rash driving), 125B (endangering life or personal safety of others), 105 and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the BNS.