NEW DELHI, Apr 5:
A person is supposed to drive a vehicle on the correct side and respect the rights of others on the road, a Delhi court has observed while upholding the conviction of a man for rash driving.
The court’s observations came on an appeal filed by a truck driver challenging his conviction and two years sentence by a magisterial court in a 14-year-old rash and negligent driving case which resulted in death of a scooter rider coming from an opposite direction.
“Any person driving a vehicle on the road is supposed to respect the rights of others, using the road. He is supposed to have complete control over his vehicle and is required to drive the same on correct side i.E. Left side of the road and not to intrude upon the space meant for the traffic coming from the opposite direction,” Additional Sessions Judge Kanwal Jeet Arora said.
The court, while dismissing the appeal regarding his conviction, also said the “duty of driver of a vehicle becomes more onerous while driving the vehicle on a single road i.e. the road without a middle verge”.
The court, however, reduced the two-year jail term awarded to Bharat Singh by the trial court to one-year sentence and imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 by taking into account that he was 50-year-old and now physically challenged. It added that he has faced the agony of a protracted trial.
According to the prosecution, Singh while driving the truck on April 1, 1998, over sped at a police check-post here defying the signal to stop. This resulting in a chase by the traffic police personnel.
It said that police followed the truck for quite a distance and during the chase, he did not allow the police gypsy to overtake his vehicle which resulted in him driving his truck on wrong side of the road.
While driving the truck on the wrong side, Singh hit scooterist Amresh Kumar coming from the opposite side, leading to his death.
The court rejected the convict’s contention that it was the police car which was driven in a rash and negligent manner and had hit his truck, saying that it was “last ditch effort” to avoid his “criminal liability”.
“Had there been any semblance in this story of the defence sought to be put forth, then why appellant fled way from the spot? Why did he surrender in court subsequently? Why did he not lodge any complaint for his false implication? There being no answer to these questions on record on the part of appellant, leads to the only inference that there is no force in the story…,” it said.
The court said it was apparent that the “high speed with which Singh was driving the offending truck, knowing that he was being chased by the police and intending to escape, was imbibed with a potential risk to the other persons using the road, to which he put them into”.
It said that owing to this “recklessness and negligence on his part” while driving the offending truck at a high speed, he had intruded upon the space meant for the traffic coming from the opposite direction, which resulted in the accident.
“The mere fact that the driver of the offending truck took decision to defy the signal by the police, to stop and to speed away despite being chased by police gypsy and motorcycle of the police, speaks volume about the rash and over hasty act on his part,” the court said. (PTI)
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