Kanpur: An FIR has been lodged here against Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra and 12 employees of Mahindra & Mahindra Limited for “false assurances” on the safety of a car.
The case was registered following a complaint by Kanpur resident Rajesh Mishra, who alleged that the company sold him a Scorpio which didn’t have airbags, leading to the death of his son in a car accident.
Mishra bought the black Scorpio for Rs 17.39 lakh in 2020 and gifted it to his son Apoorv.
While returning from Lucknow to Kanpur with friends last year, Apoorva’s car hit a divider due to foggy conditions and overturned. Apoorv died on the spot.
“On January 14, 2022, my son Dr Apoorv was returning to Kanpur from Lucknow in the car. Along with Apoorv, his friends were also in the car and all of them were wearing seat belts (mentioned in the police report). Because of fog, the car hit the divider and then toppled several times and my son died at the spot,” the complaint stated.
Mishra further said in his complaint that he would not have purchased the car had it not been for assurances given by the dealership and the company in advertisements.
Despite everyone wearing seat belts, the airbags in the car didn’t open, resulting in his son’s death, stated Mishra, adding that the company had cheated him by giving false assurances.
Mishra also said that he found out through sources that there were no airbags in the car.
Car dealership manager Anand Gopal Mahindra was among those booked at Raipurwa police station in Kanpur on Saturday.
They have been booked under IPC sections 420 (cheating), 287 (Negligent conduct with respect to machinery), 304-A (causing death by negligence), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (criminal intimidation), and 102-B (criminal intimidation).
The case could be lodged after the complainant approached a local court to get an order for filing the case.
In a press statement, Mahindra & Mahindra said it “would like to clarify with respect to an FIR that was filed on September 23, 2023. The case is over 18 months old, and the said incident happened in January 2022.”
The statement further said: “It was alleged that the vehicle did not have airbags. We would hence like to categorically reconfirm that the Scorpio S9 variant manufactured in 2020 did have airbags. We have investigated and there was no malfunction of the airbags. It was a rollover case which would not deploy the frontal airbags. A detailed technical investigation was completed by our teams in October 2022. The matter is currently sub judice and we are committed to cooperating with the authorities for any further investigation that is required. We completely empathise with the family and offer our deepest condolences to them in their grief.”
