HC expresses displeasure over prosecution in hit-n-run case

Mumbai, July 16 (UNI) The Bombay High Court today expressed displeasure over family photo negatives that were presented before the trial court, which adjudicated the hit-and-run case involving Alistair Pareira.

When Advocate General Ravi Kadam clarified that other photo negatives were not family photo negatives but those of injured persons, a division bench, comprising Chief Justice Swantanter Kumar and Justice Ranjana Desai, remarked that the investigation officer did not take photos of the deceased.

The court observed that police reached the spot immediately after the accident, but did not take the photograph of the ill-fated vehicle immediately after the incident.

Pareira's lawyer Advocate Manjula Rao today forcefully contended that Alistair was not to be blamed for the accident that took life of seven labourers and injured eight others, as there was no warning indicating four heavy vehicles were parked in the middle of the road and there was no light on the road. There was no way Alistair could have guessed that so many labourers were sleeping behind the parked vehicles.

Adv Rao also submitted that the heavy vehicles were parked on the left side of the road and there was hardly enough space for Alistair's vehicle to pass through. He (Alistair) tried his best to pass through whatever was left of the road, the break marks extending to 70 feet was evidence in that regard and that was why only right side of his vehicle was damaged.

The prosecution has been pointing towards the impact of the car as indicative of its speed, she told the court and argued that had Alistair's vehicle been in high speed how come none of the occupants of the car were injured? There was not a single scratch on the front windshield of the car, she added.

UNI