Sanjeev Nanda

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Sanjeev Nanda (b. 1978) is the son of a businessman from New Delhi who is alleged to have run over and killed six people, including three policemen, in a drunken state when he drove his BMW at high speed through a police checkpoint. The incident occurred at 4:50 AM in the night of January 10, 1999. After running through the policemen, he allegedly stopped the car to check the damage, saw people under the car, and according to the prosecution, at this point co-passenger Manik Kapoor said: ‘‘Let’s go,’’ and they quickly drove away. ^[1] The car was later cleaned up by servants at a friend's house.

Sanjeev Nanda's father, Lt. Commander Suresh Nanda (ex-Indian Navy), heads the arms supply firm Crown Corporation. His grandfather Admiral S.M. Nanda, was once India's Chief of Naval Staff; after retirement he joined the arms trading business.

Subsequently Sanjeev and five others were tried in a high profile court case that dragged on for many years. Ultimately the court did not find any of the witnesses reliable and the defense was able to make the case that it was perhaps a truck and not the BMW that had caused the deaths. All the accused were released, resulting in a sharp drop in public confidence in the legal system, since it was widely believed that the witnesses had been bought off. ^[2]

1 The BMW hit-and-run case
- 1.1 The investigation
- 1.2 The trial
2 The Nanda Family
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] The BMW hit-and-run case

The incident appears to have unfolded as follows.

Sanjeev Nanda was returning from a late night party in Gurgaon with friends Siddharth Gupta and Manik Kapoor. All three were in their early twenties and came from influential business families - Siddharth's father is the financier Rajiv Gupta, and Manik's father Sudhir Kapoor runs a thriving export business.

Siddharth had apparently been instructed by his parents not to drive that night, but was at the wheel anyway. There was a police checkpoint on Lodhi Road and it appears that the constable may have challenged the car, though it is also possible that the car was going so fast that it was out of control. In any event, it is alleged that Sanjeev's BMW crashed through all the people at the police checkpoint, immediately killing two constables - Rajan Kumar (25) (of 86th Battalion of the CRPF), Ram Raj (38) of Delhi Home Guard, and two others - Abdul Nasir (30) and Gulab (32), who were apparently being interrogated. Another policeman, Peru Lal (40) of the Delhi Home Guard, along with Mehendi Hassan, died later in hospital. The seventh victim, Manoj (32), survived, but is untraceable today. ^[3]

The car was then driven to Siddharth Gupta's house in Golf Links, where Siddharth's father Rajiv Gupta, who heads the finance firm Motor General Finance, instructed watchman Bhola Nath and driver Shyam Singh Rana to clean the bumpers and bonnet of the car of the blood and vestiges of the victims. Subsequently the police charged these three with destroying evidence.

A few days later, a witness Sunil Kulkarni, came forward to describe the scene. At the time of the crash, he was on his way to the railway station. He deposed as follows on Jan 16, 1999:

"They were driving very fast. The car went to the side, crushing two people. A few others were thrown away. The driver got out and looked at the damage done to the car. Then the other person in the car came out and looked behind the car. Then they quickly drove off. I came to the police on the 15th because of my guilty conscience." ^[2]

[edit] The investigation

The vehicle's broken registration plate was found on the scene the next morning. A 100-yard stretch near the police checkpoint was strewn with body parts and severed limbs amid pools of blood. Preliminary investigations revealed that the car would have been going at 140 km/h when it hit the victims.^[4]

Within a few hours of the incident, Inspector Jagdish Pandey of the Police Control Room of Delhi Police was able to trace the BMW by trailing the oil leak from the accident-spot to Rajiv Gupta's garage.^[5] They found the one-month old car, purchased in his sister Sonali Nanda's name, with foreign number plates, which had not been registered in India. Attempts to clean it were still in progress. Sanjeev and his friends were arrested, but his clothes, and those of the others who helped clean the car, were never found.

When Sanjeev and his friends were first charged with Culpable homicide in court, a gaggle of Delhi's elite descended on Patiala House courts, including ex-Admiral Nanda himself. ^[3]

[edit] The trial

During the trial, the only survivor, Manoj, said that it might have been a truck that hit them. Since the other six witnesses were dead, Manoj was the only voice. It is widely believed that he had been paid off, and has mysteriously disappeared thereafter. Another witness, Sunil Kulkarni had volunteered to have seen the incident, but the elite defence team was able to discredit him and he was portrayed as having been "put up" by the Delhi Police.

In Sanjeev Nanda's testimony (in 92 questions over 14 pages), he told Judge S.L. Bayana that he was not driving the car and was not the car's owner. He said it was his sister's car and he had nothing to do with the accident.

Sanjeev Nanda spent a few months in jail but was released on bail in May 1999. He was set a surety of a Rs 45 crore (USD 9 million), subsequently reduced to Rs. 15 crore (USD 3 million). Sanjeev, it turned out, was a British national. Sanjeev may currently be abroad for higher studies. A civil case is still pending trial.

The BMW case joins a long list of similar cases. A few years back, Puru Raj Kumar, the son of Bollywood director Raj Kumar, had run over two pavement dwellers. He had been fined Rs. 35000 (about USD 1000).

[edit] The Nanda Family

Following the incident there was considerable debate about the Nanda family and the source of its wealth. One year after the incident, the Tehelka tapes revealed possible influence Lt-Cmdr Suresh Nanda and Admiral SM Nanda may have had with the Indian Ministry of Defence. In these tapes, the reporter is posing as a representative of the fictional large arms supplier West End. At one point, the Samata Party national treasurer RK Jain is trying to convince Tehelka about his prowess in swinging deals. He mentions how in the first defence deal that he was involved in as the party treasurer, Suresh Nanda of Crown Corporation had paid Samata Party Rs 1 crore to swing the Rs 250-crore (USD 60 million) order for Armoured Recovery Vehicles (ARV) in favour of a Slovakian company.

Samata Party treasurer R.K. Jain: "Nanda approached me. Czechoslovakia's price was the lowest, second Slovakian, third was the Poland."

Tehelka: "Haan, Haan."

R.K. Jain: "He said, 'I will give you one crore rupees in advance'."

Tehelka: "Okay."

R.K. Jain: "You get disapproved the last one. Czechoslovakia because they are so lower that we cannot match their price."

Tehelka: "Okay."

R.K. Jain: "If you can push him out. Delegation is going on to the... delegation has been ordered to go to Czechoslovakia. Stop this delegation, and technically reject this company. Here are the documents."

Tehelka: "Hmm."

R.K.Jain: "By which it's proved that this company is closed for the last two years. They will start only after getting this order."

Tehelka: "Yeah, yeah."

R.K. Jain: "I will give one crore rupees. And I will give you... if they are technically disapproved, then you are my agent."

Tehelka: "Yeah."

R.K. Jain: "For this particular... perks... and I will give you so much of commission."

Tehelka: "Okay."

R.K. Jain: "I said, 'Fine.' He gave me the correspondence. I took the correspondence to George."

(the then Defence minister George Fernandes was from Samata Party)

Tehelka: "Hmm."

R.K. Jain: "And he said, 'All right, I'll reject it.' He is a very intelligent man."...

Tehelka: Okay, it is manipulated.

R.K. Jain: He wrote straight away on the file himself. He never goes and orders to a Joint Secretary. He wrote it himself, and sent the file back. Nanda gave me one crore rupees. He called me, "Yes, Mr. Jain, the file has come down. Like you know George…"

Tehelka: Yeah, yeah. ^[6]

Jain also said that he had received another Rs 1 crore for the Samata Party from Suresh Nanda to help swing the contract for an air-to-air and surface-to-surface missile system for the Indian Navy. Nanda was an agent for the Israeli Barak missile system. ^[7]

These tapes were the result of a clandestine sting operation and while the charges are not proved in court, the Central Bureau of Investigation has arrested R.K. Jain in February 2006 in connection with the Tehelka tapes. ^[8]

[edit] See also

Jessica Lall Model shot in a bar in front of many witnesses by politician's son. Let off after witnesses turn hostile.
Priyadarshini Mattoo College student raped and killed by stalker who is police chief's son. Murderer found guilty after dogged pursuit of justice by the media and the victim's family, and sentenced to death. Mattoo case: Justice delayed, denied and awarded