Abraham appeals

Bollywood actor John Abraham, whose mother is a Zoroastrian, has filed an appeal in the Sessions Court on October 29, 2010 against his conviction a fortnight earlier in an accident case dating back to 2006. The Metropolitan Magistrate Court in Bandra had sentenced him to 15 days’ simple imprisonment on October 14, as per a report in Hindustan Times (HT) on October 30, 2010. Abraham obtained bail against a security of Rs 1,500.

On April 8, 2006 Abraham’s Suzuki Hayabusa bike allegedly rammed into two youngsters on a bicycle at around

11.15 p.m. on Bandra’s Carter Road. Abraham immediately took the victims, Shyam Kasbe, 22, and Tanmay Majhi,

19, to the Bhabha Hospital. As he too was injured, Abraham had himself admitted to Lilavati Hospital. The police told HT that the actor was returning from Maureen Wadia’s Gladrags show while the two young men were going home after closing the wine shop in which they worked. The police booked the actor under sections 279 (rash driving on a public way) and 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code, HT reported.

In his 18-page appeal the actor claimed that the prosecution had failed to prove its case, reported The Indian Express (IE) also on October 30. "Two men riding a cycle were chatting with each other and had not realized the bike was moving towards them. They, in their statements, have nowhere claimed the bike was speeding or there was any sign of negligence on the biker’s part,” the appeal mentions, as per the IE report HT quotes from the appeal: "The lower court has relied on hearsay evi- dence in convicting the appellant... (It) ought to have seen that either a person has committed a rash act or had been criminally negligent. He can’t do both... The judge had misconstrued the facts and has, without applying the principles relating to the acts of rashness and criminal negligence, convicted the applicant.”