‘She had complete knowledge’: Gadkar must be tried for murder, says prosecution

MUMBAI: Corporate lawyer Jahnavi Gadkar had complete knowledge that driving under the influence of alcohol through the wrong side of the road could result in a fatal accident. She still chose to indulge in the act in June 2015, when her car collided head-on with a taxi on the Eastern Freeway, leading to the death of the driver and a passenger, the prosecution told the sessions court on Thursday, urging that she be tried for murder.
“She was driving on the wrong side for two kilometers after taking a U-turn and she drove through the middle of the road,” public prosecutor Iqbal Solkar submitted before the court on Thursday. “She avoided calls and shouts made by passersby, which prove that her intention was clear,” the prosecutor further noted, relying on statements of multiple eyewitnesses who said they had called out to her while she was driving through the wrong side.
According to the prosecution, on June 8, 2015, Gadkar and her colleagues visited a south Mumbai hotel to celebrate the success of a company project. They consumed alcohol there and headed for Marine Drive in her Audi Q3 car at around 10pm. At around 12.30am on June 9, she left in her car for her home in Chembur via the Eastern Freeway. But she took an unauthorised U-turn along the route and drove on the wrong side of the highway for over two kilometers till her car rammed into a taxi coming from the opposite direction.
Mohammed Hussain Abdul Sayyad, the taxi driver, and Salim Sabuwala, a passenger who was returning from Bhiwandi with his family, were killed due to the impact of the accident, while several others sustained injuries.
The 560-page chargesheet submitted in court by the RCF police contended that charges should be framed against Gadkar for culpable homicide not amounting to murder and other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Motor Vehicles Act and the Maharashtra Prohibition Act. On Thursday, Solkar urged that the charge of murder be added against her, which attracts a minimum punishment of imprisonment for life.
The defense will present its arguments in the next hearing, scheduled for October 1. After listening to both sides, the court will frame charges in the nine-year-old case.
Gadkar spent 58 days behind bars before she was granted bail by the sessions court on August 5, 2015.