KSRTC accident: ‘Cops shielding guilty’

Arjun Raghunath
The New Indian Express
10 Dec 2010

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It’s nearly two decades since a thirty-year-old woman was run over by a speeding KSRTC bus at Palayam, leaving behind her husband and two children. The incident has moved everyone - even those with hearts of stone - except the Thiruvananthapuram City Police.
A Satheedevi, an employee with the Accountant General’s office, was killed on August 8, 1991 when a KSRTC bus hit the scooter on which she was pillion riding behind her husband P K Shankaran Kutty on the flyover between Chandrasekharan Nair Stadium and MLA quarters. Satheedevi was, incidentally, the first road accident victim on the flyover.
Owing to a ‘mysterious’ delay on the part of the City Police in furnishing certain vital documents to the Advocate General’s office, the case has been pending for nearly eight years. The political clout of the accused is alleged to be the reason for the negligence by the police.
The Thiruvananthapuram Judicial First Class Magistrate court had convicted the KSRTC bus driver, Mathai, to 15 months’ imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 500 in February 1995. However, Mathai filed an appeal against the verdict at the District Sessions Court and he was acquitted in May 2002. The victim’s husband alleges that the public prosecutor had abstained from the court during the trial so as to favour the accused, who was an active member of the pro-Kerala Congress (B) Drivers’ Union.
A prosecution appeal was filed at the High Court against the Sessions Court verdict in January 2003. But the High Court had marked the petition defective owing to the absence of the lower court verdicts. Since then, the Advocate General’s office had sent four reminders to the Circle Inspector of the Thiruvananthapuram city police as well as City Police Commissioner seeking copy of the lower court judgments in the case. But, so far, there has been no response from either the Circle Inspector or the City Police Commissioner.
A recent reply given by the Advocate General’s Office under the Right to Information Act to Shankaran Kutty has exposed the serious lapse on the part of the city police. The Advocate General’s office also maintained that the case was lying idle as the copy of the lower court judgments had not yet been received from the police authorities.
According to the reply from the Advocate General’s office, communications seeking the copy of the lower court orders were sent to the Circle Inspector of the City Traffic Police on March 17, 2003 and June 2, 2003 as well to the City Police Commissioner on August 6, 2003 and April 24, 2004. However, there has been no response so far.
“This exposes the double stand of the police. While the police initiate awareness programmes against rash and negligent driving on one side, the same police are deliberately delaying legal action against a person accused of rash driving. Moreover, justice is being denied to the victims of rash driving,” laments Shankaran Kutty, who was a State Government employee.