By IANS
New Delhi : Sunil Kulkarni, the controversial key witness in the 1999 BMW hit-and-run in which six people were killed, Thursday did yet another about-turn in court, this time refusing to identify the prime accused Sanjeev Nanda, grandson of former navy chief Admiral S.M. Nanda.
During his cross-examination by defence counsel Ramesh Gupta, Kulkarni told Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar that he was not able to clearly see Sanjeev alighting from the vehicle in the early morning of Jan 10, 1999, after it had run over six people on Lodhi Road.
"It is correct that due to the circumstances I could not see the persons, including Sanjeev Nanda, who had come out of the car after the accident," said Kulkarni, a Mumbai-based trader.
"I can only speak about the physique of the occupants of the car as I did not see them clearly," he said.
On May 17, Kulkarni had categorically identified Sanjeev Nanda as the person who had alighted from the BMW car after the accident.
On July 11, Kulkarni had done a flip-flop when he said that he had clearly seen two of the occupants come out of the car and then heard one telling the other – "Sanjeev, let us rush".
However, on May 17 Kulkarni had told the court that he had heard one of the occupants of the car telling the other – "San, let us go".
When the judge had asked Kulkarni about the change in his deposition, Kulkarni said that earlier he had used the word "San" on the insistence of the police.