By IANS
Mumbai : The noose around Alistair Pereira, the 21-year-old sentenced to six months jail for killing seven pavement dwellers, tightened Thursday with the Bombay High Court asking the police to probe how he had managed to get Rs.500,000 within half an hour to pay the victims.
However, the young businessman, who is out on bail, got a temporary respite when a division bench comprising Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice S.C. Dharmadhikari adjourned the case till June 6.
The bench asked Mumbai Police Commissioner D.N. Jadhav to explain the loopholes in the investigation and also wanted to know the details of the compensation and how it had been invested.
Pereira’s defence counsel was not present in the court, but when the judge asked about the money, he said: “My parents managed it.”
He had deposited the Rs.500,000 on April 15 when a fast track court found him guilty of rash driving and sentenced him to six months in jail for mowing down seven pavement dwellers and injuring a few others on Carter Road in Bandra in November last year.
The charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder could not be proved.
While the Bombay High Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the case and asked for reopening it, the state government has also filed an appeal in the high court seeking a stricter sentence. It contends that Pereira should be sentenced to a maximum of two years owing to the gravity of his offence.