Chandigarh, September 29: The high-profile road rage case involving an army officer is heading to its culmination in a compromise between the two parties.
Col Manvir Singh Bains, who was charged with murder following the death of Parveen Yadav during an altercation on September 2 last year, will be paying compensation to the victim’s family, their counsels have submitted before the Punjab and Haryana high court (HC).
“Learned counsels of both sides have jointly stated that the matter has been compromised between the parties. The required demand draft shall be produced on the next date of hearing (October 1),” reads the HC order on September 26.
Col Bains, 48, belongs to the 379 Army Service Corps of the Western Command, Chandimandir, and is a resident of Phase 7, Mohali. He was arrested on September 2 and booked for murder after a scuffle with Yadav, 38, on the dividing road of Sectors 34 and 35, Chandigarh. He is presently out on bail.
Yadav, a distributor of electrical goods and resident of Sector 37, was suffering from both hypertension and diabetes. He was in his Chevrolet Beat, and the driver of a Skoda in which Col Bains and his wife were travelling asked him to stop and get out of the car after the two vehicles allegedly brushed past each other.
Yadav collapsed in the scuffle and was declared dead when he was taken to hospital.
Col Bains was on study leave when the case was registered against him. When soon after his arrest, his unit’s commanding officer (CO) had applied for his custody, the trial court had declined it saying he “wasn’t in active service”.
As the victim’s autopsy conducted by a medical board of Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, stated that he died of natural causes, police dropped the murder charge (Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code) in the challan and added culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304-II).
However, the trial court framed charges under Sections 302 and 304-II, while observing that he “intentionally jolted, thrashed and slapped the deceased”.
Following this, Col Bains had moved the HC, challenging the framing of charges. He had submitted before court the postmortem report stating “death occurred due to acute coronary insufficiency in a case of pre-existing coronary artery disease; a natural cause”. On his plea, the HC had stayed murder trial proceedings against him.
Yadav is survived by his wife Pallavi and two sons, Arush, 9, and Arnav, 7. He was the sole breadwinner. Sources said during the HC proceedings, his family had told court that they were ready to forgive Col Bains. It was following this that the two families started discussing a compromise.
Source Hindustan Times
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