Kolkata court grants actor Vikram Chatterjee bail in model Sonika Chauhan death case

A Kolkata court on Wednesday granted bail to actor Vikram Chatterjee, arrested after model Sonika Chauhan's tragic death in a car accident on April 29.

Vikram was arrested late night on July 6 by the Kolkata police. He was taken into custody for further questioning after multiple inconsistencies were recorded in his statements earlier. The actor, who had surrendered before a local court after the mishap, was out on bail for over two months till his arrest.

After rejecting Vikram's bail plea earlier, the Alipore Sessions Court on Wednesday granted the actor bail on the condition that he won't be allowed to leave the city without prior permission from the Kolkata police.

The actor has also been asked to furnish two sureties of Rs 25,000 each and surrender his passport with the police.

WHAT VIKRAM's COUNSEL SAID

"He has been granted bail today. We had moved the bail plea based on two points - that he was not drunk and neither was he speeding. There is no evidence to prove that he was drunk as the medical report does not support that claim", said Vikram's counsel Rintu Chakraborty.

Initially, Vikram was only booked under Section 304 A (death due to negligence) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). But after massive public outcry, police added the non-bailable section 304 (culpable homicide) against the actor.

Last week, Kolkata police had filed a chargesheet against the actor, claiming that there was evidence to prove that Vikram was driving his car at a high speed. A report of the forensic test conducted on the ill-fated vehicle states that the car was speeding at over 100 km per hour when the accident took place, the police claimed.

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