The additional district judge, whose 17-year-old son allegedly drove a Mercedes-Benz into a scooter and killed a street food vendor in Kochi , told the Kerala high court on Thursday that he did not know his son had taken the car and learnt about the accident only after receiving a phone call.
In his anticipatory bail application, the judge said he had no knowledge that the car had been taken from his residence, Bar and Bench reported. The judge also said that the jurisdictional magistrate had issued a search warrant and that the police had searched his residence, LiveLaw reported. A special court in Ernakulam is scheduled to hear a plea seeking cancellation of his bail on Friday. On Wednesday, the government also removed Kochi city police commissioner Kaliraj Mahesh Kumar from his post.
Notably, the judge had approached the high court for anticipatory bail in a case registered against him under the Motor Vehicles Act . The court granted him relief. “There is no scope for custodial interrogation. Necessarily, he has to be granted protection. He is a judicial officer, and he will cooperate. He argued that nothing further remained to be investigated, as the search warrant was specifically intended to establish whether he knew his son had taken the car. The teenager was detained at the scene and later granted bail by the Juvenile Justice Board. He faces charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and rash and negligent driving. The judge was named in the case registered under Section 199A of the Motor Vehicles Act. Notably, the provision allows action against a guardian or vehicle owner when a minor commits an offence using a motor vehicle. Under the provision, the court presumes that the minor used the vehicle with the consent of its owner or guardian. The state government has admitted to lapses in the police investigation into the fatal crash and suspended four personnel posted at Cheranalloor police station.
The crash occurred in the early hours of October 25 in Kochi’s Chittoor area and killed Jayabalakrishnan, who ran a street food cart in the neighbourhood. It prescribes a prison term of up to three years, a fine of ₹ 25,000 and cancellation of the vehicle’s registration for 12 months. He was replaced by R Nishanthini, a 2008-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. (With inputs from Vishnu Varma)
Justice Kauser Edappagath, who heard the plea, noted that the police had already questioned the judge for four hours and said he would cooperate with the investigation . For four hours, the police had interrogated him,” he said. He said he learnt about the incident after a phone call woke him up and informed him that his minor son had taken the car while he was asleep. In the plea, he said the police seized electronic devices and a motorbike from the house.
