A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed before the Bombay High Court this week, seeking direction from the Court to add ‘Culpable Homicide’ in the First Information Report (FIR) against Dr. Anahita Pandole, who was driving the car on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway, when it crashed, killing Cyrus Mistry and Jehangir Pandole (seated in the backseat), and injuring herself and her husband (seated next to her), on 4^th September, 2022.

(On 5^th November, 2022, an FIR was registered against Pandole for various traffic violations including rash driving, negligence, over-speeding and overtaking. On 5^th January, 2023, Kasa police filed a chargesheet against gynaecologist Dr. Anahita Pandole, stating that her negligence while driving and dangerous overtaking led to the fatal accident.)

The Bombay High Court has granted more time to petitioner Sandesh Jedhe, a social worker, who had approached and urged the court to direct the Kasa Police Station (Palghar District) to add Section 304 (Culpable Homicide Not Amounting To Murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in the FIR against Dr. Pandole.

Hearing the plea, a Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice S.V. Gangapurwala and Justice Sandeep Marne said that it was the job of a magistrate to decide what charges to put and censured that the petitioner for asking the High Court to do the magistrate’s function. “What is your locus standi? How are you concerned in this case?” asked the Bench.

Jedhe’s advocate, Sadiq Ali claimed that his client had evidence that Dr. Pandole was under the influence of alcohol while driving at the time of the accident. In his petition, Jedhe referred to a CCTV footage indicating that Dr. Pandole had been allegedly consuming liquor at a café the night before the accident.

Senior advocate, Aabad Ponda, appearing for Dr. Pandole, said, “It is premised on the imagination that she was under alcohol. There were tests conducted by the police.” Public prosecutor Aruna Kamat Pai added, “The tests were negative.” Advocate Ali, however, said he has more material to prove his case. The court has adjourned the matter to be heard on January 17, 2023.

55-year-old Dr. Anahita Pandole is among the city’s most renowned gynaecologists. She has been a specialist for 25 years and has 32 years of experience as a doctor. She is associated with Mumbai’s Breach Candy Hospital, Jaslok Hospital and Research Centre, BD Petit Parsee General Hospital, and Masina Hospital.

She is widely credited for preserving the Parsi heritage in the city. She played a key role in the ideation and formulation of the Jiyo Parsi programme, a government-funded scheme to help Parsi couples dealing with infertility, providing fertility treatments at subsidised rates. In 2004, Pandole started the Bombay Parsi Panchyet Fertility Project with the BPP to provide state-of-the-art facilities to the community. She also helped create a database of Parsis living in India for the Ministry of Minority Affairs.

She has also regularly raised her voice against illegal hoardings in the city. Just a week before the accident in September, she wrote to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) opposing the hoardings on footpaths, along the Western Express Highway, stating these could pose a threat to motorists.