The Delhi High Court on Tuesday issued a notice to the city police on a petition filed by Sanjeev Nanda challenging a lower court's decision to sentence him to five years' imprisonment in the BMW hit-and-run case.
Justice Kailash Gambhir sought a response from the police after briefly hearing the contentions of Nanda.
Sanjeev Nanda, grandson of ex-naval chief S M Nanda, approached the High Court against his conviction and quantum of sentence awarded to him by the lower court.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Nanda, contended that no incriminating circumstance appeared against him and the trial court had wrongly convicted him due to publicity in the media.
Seeking bail from the court, Nanda contended that the trial court has accepted the testimony of controversial prosecution eye-witness Sunil Kulkarni which is not reliable as he was in Mumbai and not in Delhi at the time of accident.
Alleging that the police had delayed the recording of Kulkarni's statement, Nanda said that the court ignored the testimonies of the other defence witnesses.
Nanda, who along with others was convicted by the trial court on September 5, said that the fact that he had paid a compensation of Rs 65 lakh each to the victim's family was also ignored by the court.
It also sentenced co-convict and businessman Rajeev Gupta to one-year rigorous imprisonment for destruction of evidence, Gupta's two employees -- Bhola Nath and Shyam Singh -- were awarded six months' jail terms each for washing off blood stains and pieces of victims' flesh from the offending vehicle after the incident.
Nanda had crushed six persons to death while driving the BMW car in an inebriated condition in the wee hours of January 10, 1999 at Lodhi Colony in south Delhi.
