Mumbai: The Bombay high court has refused to grant bail to the driver of a luxury bus that plunged into a river off the Mumbai-Goa highway four years ago, killing 37 passengers and injuring 15 others.
The HC rejected Santaji Kirdat’s bail plea while hearing his appeal against a trial court order convicting him for rash driving, negligence, and culpable homicide not amounting to murder. The court held that the police probe found Kirdat to have been speeding on a narrow stretch of the bridge at the time of the accident. He had knowingly put the lives of the passengers at risk. He was awarded 10 years of rigorous imprisonment earlier this year.
The incident occurred around on March 19, 2013 at 3am, when the luxury bus carrying 52 people, driven by the applicant, plunged into the Jagbudi River. The conductor and 36 other passengers of the bus died. Kirdat has filed an appeal in the HC challenging his conviction and sentence. He had requested the court to grant him bail pending his appeal.
According to the HC, the tyre marks of the bus revealed that even though he had applied the brakes, he could not control the vehicle and it fell into the river after crashing through the barrier of the British era bridge.
