Hyderabad: Questioning the government’s decision to close the Biodiversity flyover for the last 19 days, after a car fell off the flyover and killed one woman and injured three others, the High Court on Thursday asked if this was confirmation of the fact that the design of the flyover was faulty.
While dealing with the petition of Kalvakuntla Krishna Milan Rao, who has been held responsible for the death and injury of the women by his negligent driving, Justice T. Vinod Kumar asked the government what made it close the flyover. He said that he had noticed that the flyover was closed even on Dec.11. The judge pulled up the police for altering sections of the law under which it was prosecuting the accused, from 304-A (causing death by negligence) 337 and 279 IPC to Section 304 Part II (culpable homicide) and Section 308 (attempt to commit homicide). Citing the SC judgments in Jayaraj vs State of TN, and two other judgments, the court asked Srikanth Reddy, counsel appearing for the state, where was the intention of the accused in this case to kill or injure somebody.
“In this case, the accused might have had chances of death. At the time, he could not assume he would survive and he may have no intention to cause death to anybody,” the court said.
Emphasising that rash driving should be punished, the High Court asked the counsel how many cases of culpable homicide had been booked in accidents which have occurred on the Outer Ring Road.
Justice Vinod Kumar also opined that there would not be enough evidence against the accused if a case of culpable homicide was registered.
The petitioner-accused, Mr Rao, filed two interim applications before the court seeking to extend the relief granted to him by directing the police not to arrest further and challenging the alteration of sections of the Indian Penal Code, from causing death by negligence, to culpable homicide.
Allowing his application on the arrest, the court extended its earlier order to not arrest the petitioner till January 3 and directed the police department to file its contention over alteration of the sections of the Indian Penal Code.
A. Prabakhar Rao, counsel for the petitioner, submitted that the police was focusing on the case with ‘some other’ intentions.
He submitted that if a case of culpable homicide is registered, then the victim has no chance to get compensation.
