After spending 18 days in judicial custody, actor
Vikram Chatterjee was granted bail by Additional District Judge
Sujay Sengupta of
Alipore court yesterday in the
Sonika Chauhan death case. Almost 3 months after the 27-year-old model died a tragic death, Vikram, who was behind the wheels on the fateful night, was arrested on July 6 from South Kolkata. Initially, he was only booked under Section 304 A (death due to negligence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is bailable.
But police later slapped non-bailable section 304 (culpable homicide) against the actor citing proof that substantiated the theory of over-speeding.
"The court has granted him bail on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 with one surety of the same amount. It has also asked him to submit his passport and to be present before it on all hearings of the case," said Vikram's lawyer, Anirban Guha Thakurta.
Last week, Kolkata police filed a chargesheet against
Vikram stating that there was evidence to prove that Vikram was driving his car at a high speed. The charge sheet cited around 40 witnesses, eight of whom had recorded their statements before a judicial magistrate. A report of the forensic test conducted on the car also threw light on the fact that it was speeding at over 105 km per hour when the mishap took place.