The additional district judge, whose 17-year-old son allegedly drove a Mercedes-Benz into a scooter and killed a street food vendor in Kochi , told the Kerala high court on Thursday that he did not know his son had taken the car and learnt about the accident only after receiving a phone call.
In his anticipatory bail application, the judge said he had no knowledge that the car had been taken from his residence, Bar and Bench reported. The judge also said that the jurisdictional magistrate had issued a search warrant and that the police had searched his residence, LiveLaw reported. “There is no scope for custodial interrogation. Necessarily, he has to be granted protection. He is a judicial officer, and he will cooperate. He argued that nothing further remained to be investigated, as the search warrant was specifically intended to establish whether he knew his son had taken the car.
Justice Kauser Edappagath, who heard the plea, noted that the police had already questioned the judge for four hours and said he would cooperate with the investigation . For four hours, the police had interrogated him,” he said. He said he learnt about the incident after a phone call woke him up and informed him that his minor son had taken the car while he was asleep. In the plea, he said the police seized electronic devices and a motorbike from the house.
What’s the case?
A special court in Ernakulam is scheduled to hear a plea seeking cancellation of his bail on Friday. Notably, the judge had approached the high court for anticipatory bail in a case registered against him under the Motor Vehicles Act . The court granted him relief. The teenager was detained at the scene and later granted bail by the Juvenile Justice Board. He faces charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and rash and negligent driving.
