Delhi BMW crash accused denied  bail, sent back to jail till Sept 27

A Delhi court on Wednesday refused bail to Gaganpreet Kaur, the 38-year-old woman behind the wheel of a BMW that killed a senior Finance Ministry officer and injured his wife in Dhaula Kuan, extending her judicial custody till September 27.

Judicial Magistrate Ankit Garg passed the order after Kaur was produced before the court. She was earlier remanded in custody on September 15 following her arrest on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and other offences.

During the hearing, Kaur’s lawyer Ramesh Gupta urged the court to preserve CCTV footage of the accident, saying the case had been escalated from an accident to culpable homicide under Section 105 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). “The corresponding IPC section had two parts, one with life imprisonment and the other without. Here, both families are aggrieved,” he argued.

Gupta also told the court that the FIR was filed nearly 10 hours after Kaur’s arrest and pressed that the Deputy Commissioner of Police, who first met the eyewitnesses, should be made a witness. He further claimed that the BMW had hit a bus as well, which was never seized, and questioned whether a medical van at the spot had indeed refused to take the victims to hospital.

Defending Kaur, he said she had done her best to help. “She even sat in the van that stopped and called her father-in-law to ask about a hospital. She had to leave her injured husband and children behind in the car. The investigation must be fair,” he submitted.

The complainant’s counsel, however, painted a very different picture. He alleged that Kaur showed no urgency in taking the victims to a nearby hospital and instead insisted on driving them 20 km away, costing valuable time. “She wasn’t seriously injured herself, but later got admitted to the ICU and produced a false medico-legal case after five hours,” he claimed.

The lawyer further argued that Kaur was speeding recklessly. “The BMW overturned because of the speed. If you drive a car worth crores, you might survive, but you must ensure help for those you injure,” he said, adding that the van driver had already confirmed she ignored repeated pleas to take the victims to the nearest facility.

The prosecution opposed bail, citing her conduct after the crash and her alleged attempts to mislead the investigation. Kaur faces charges under Sections 281 (rash driving), 125B (endangering life), 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 238 (causing disappearance of evidence) of the BNS.

On September 15, Navjot Singh, 52, Deputy Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs, lost his life when the BMW rammed a two-wheeler on Ring Road near Delhi Cantonment Metro. His wife was injured in the crash. The matter will now be heard again on Saturday.