A Mumbai court on Monday granted bail to Rajesh Shah, a Shiv Sena leader from Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde’s faction, a day after he was arrested in the case of his 24-year-old son, Mihir Shah, allegedly crashing his BMW car into a two-wheeler, leading to a woman’s death, Bar and Bench reported.
The Maharashtra Police had arrested Shah on Sunday for allegedly not co-operating with the investigation into the case. The Shiv Sena leader had also allegedly asked his son to flee from the site and also asked him to instruct the family driver, Rajrishi Rajendrasingh Bidawat, to take the wheel.
Bidawat was also arrested on Sunday. He was on Monday remanded to police custody for a day.
Mihir Shah, who is suspected to have been inebriated at the time of the accident, is reportedly absconding. The police had issued a lookout circular for him to prevent him from fleeing the country to avoid being arrested.
Once such a circular is issued, a suspect is halted at immigration if they try to leave the country through an airport or port.
The victim, identified as Kaveri Nakhwa, was a resident of Worli Koliwada. The victim’s husband Pradeep Nakhava, who also sustained injuries, was riding the bike when the incident took place. Kaveri Nakhava was riding pillion.
The police had registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, rash driving and destruction of evidence, among others, under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita against Mihir Shah, Rajesh Shah and Bidawat. Provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act were also invoked.
On Monday, Rajesh Shah and Bidawat were produced in the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (Sewree) SP Bhosale, PTI reported.
The court initially remanded Rajesh Shah to 14 days in judicial custody, Bar and Bench reported. However, the defence counsel subsequently applied for bail.
During the remand hearing, the police told the court that Mihir Shah had reportedly called his father following the incident, PTI reported. The police submitted CCTV footage of the incident, and alleged that Rajesh Shah knew where his son was and hence needed to be interrogated.
However, defence lawyer Sudhir Bhardwaj told the court that the closed-circuit television footage submitted by the police was not mentioned in the remand, PTI reported.
The defence lawyer also questioned whether it was reason enough to arrest the father when the son was missing. He added that it was normal for a son to call his father when in panic, according to PTI.
The advocate told the court that culpable homicide charges did not apply to Rajesh Shah as he was not present at the spot. The custody of Bidawat was also not needed because nothing was recovered from him, he contended.
Subsequently, the court allowed Rajesh Shah’s petition for bail on a temporary cash bond of Rs 15,000.
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