A Kerala court on Tuesday granted bail to suspended IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman, who was arrested for alleged drunken driving that caused the death of a journalist in Thiruvananthapuram.
Judicial First Class Magistrate Aneesa A granted bail after perusing the chemical examination report of Venkitaraman's blood samples, which was found negative for alcohol content and the case diary of the police.
"Bail application allowed", the judge said, accepting the defense argument that there was no alcohol content in the blood sample of the accused.
Advocate Dheerendra Krishnan, appearing for the accused, submitted that the case should be allowed on merit and argued against charging his client under Section 304 of the Indian Penal Code (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) instead of Section 304A (causing death by negligence).
"This is an accident case. Just because my client is an IAS officer, it does not mean that he cannot drive a car.
The blood analysis report of the police came out negative," he argued.
The prosecution, however, stated that since the accused was an IAS officer, he might influence the victims if he was granted bail.
The court sought further reports in the case and later in the evening granted conditional bail to the officer.
Venkitaraman's blood sample was taken nine hours after the mishap and after he initially refused to provide it and got himself admitted in a private hospital.
The IAS officer was arrested on August 3, hours after the luxury car driven by him in an alleged inebriated condition while returning from a private party, knocked down journalist K. Muhammed Basheer, killing him on the spot.
Venkitaraman was later remanded to 14 days judicial custody.
The government had on Monday suspended the 33-year-oldofficer, who was serving as the Survey Director.
A Special Investigation Team (SIT) had also been constituted to probe the case.
35-year-old Basheer, Thiruvananthapuram Bureau Chief of Malayalam daily "Siraj" was on his home from work when the mishap occurred at around 1 AM on Saturday.