‘Woman was in blind spot, running in opp direction’
MUMBAI: Twenty-three-yearold Sumer Merchant, arrested for running over a jogger at Worli sea face on March 19, on Tuesday approached the sessions court for bail claiming that he did not see the woman as it was a blind spot and she was running in the opposite direction – against the flow of traffic on the stretch.
Merchant’s plea filed through advocate Anjali Patil is likely to come up for hearing on March 31.
“There was no knowledge that the act would result in death,” his bail plea states, adding that there was no evidence to show that Merchant was under the influence of alcohol.
“The breath analyser did not reflect that he was under the influence of liquor. There was nothing to show that he was inebriated and driving under the influence of liquor. After the alleged incident, the occupants of the car immediately rushed to the woman’s aid to help her and rushed her in an ambulance,” adds the bail plea.
It points out that the charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder were not applicable.
“The applicant was arrested and sent for medical examination in the afternoon, after quite a few hours of the alleged incident. The samples from the forensic science laboratory (FSL) revealed alcohol in the applicant’s blood. It is not the case of the prosecution that the breath analysers of Worli Police Station were not working. This creates a doubt on the FSL reports of the blood samples drawn after a few hours of the incident and when in fact the breath analyser showed no signs of alcohol intoxication immediately after the alleged incident,” states the bail plea. Merchant approached the sessions court a day after his bail plea was rejected by a metropolitan magistrate court. It observed that the “alcohol examination certificate produced on March 24, 2023, shows 0.137 mgs ethyl alcohol was found in the blood sample of the applicant accused. Therefore, there appears no substance in the submissions of defence that his breath analysis test was found negative.” “Though the accused has blamed the sharp turn on the road, however, from records and photographs filed, there appears to be no such blind spot. On the contrary, considering contentions of both sides and the time of the incident, the contention of prosecution about knowledge appears reasonable,” it added.
Merchant’s speeding car hit 58-year-old Rajalakshmi Vijay Ramakrishnan on March 19 at Worli Sea Face. The impact was so severe that Ramakrishnan was killed on the spot. The accused was on his way to drop his friends at Shivaji Park after partying with them the whole night.
Ramakrishnan was the chief executive officer of the Business of Altruist Technologies Pvt Ltd, which has over 14,000 employees, 32 clients and 17 delivery centres spread across India, Africa as well as the UAE.