Manslaughter charges against IAS officer to stay

KOCHI: Kerala High Court (HC) on Friday stayed the dropping of culpable homicide (manslaughter) charges against Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Sreeram Venkitaraman and his friend, Wafa Firoz, in the alleged drunk driving case resulting in the death of journalist KM Basheer in 2019.

The court was considering the appeal filed by state government against the Additional Sessions Court I, Trivandrum order dismissing the culpable homicide charges against Venkitaraman.

The Sessions Court, while dropping the charges under Section 304 which provides punishment for culpable homicide and Section 201, which penalises causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information, last month had maintained that the other charges under Sections 304 A (causing death by negligence) and 279 (rash and negligent driving) of the IPC and Section 184 of the Motor Vehicles Act would stand.

Venkitaraman had argued that there was no evidence regarding him having driven the vehicle in a drunken state.

The court also stayed the trial proceedings for two months.

In the plea, the state government had also requested the HC not to go ahead with the trial until further proceedings are completed.

Soon ater accepting the government’s plea, the court sent notices to all the rival parties in the case, including Venkitaraman.

In 2019, police had booked Venkitaraman Wafa on charges of manslaughter and drunk driving leading to the death of KM Basheer, who was heading the bureau of a newspaper in the state capital.

Journalists accused the prosecution of not conducting the case properly and producing evidence prompting the trial court to accept their discharge petitions.

Only charges of reckless driving leading to the death of the young journalist heading home ater duty past midnight remained against the duo.

The lower court was set to start the trial on Nov.20 and if found guilty, they could end up serving up to two years in jail.

It had triggered widespread outrage among the people and MV Vineetha, the president of the Kerala Union of Working Journalists, slammed the state’s role in it.

The crash happened at the Museum junction, barely 100 metres from the local police station, around 12:55am on the high-security road.

The surveillance cameras on this stretch frequented by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his cabinet colleagues were either turned off or their footage went missing.