The Supreme Court on Monday granted bail to a man convicted for rash and negligent driving, causing death of a four-year-old child more than a decade ago.
A three-Judge bench of Chief Justice N. V. Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Aniruddha Bose has granted bail to the car driver and also issued notice to the state government.
The CJI asked the petitioner Counsel whether he was willing to pay compensation to the family of the deceased boy.
Senior Advocate Siddharth Luthra, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, assured that the petitioner was willing to pay the compensation amount, which will be decided by the court.
“The petitioner is directed to be released on bail, subject to such terms and conditions which the concerned Trial Court shall deem fit and appropriate to impose upon him,” said the apex court. Further, it directed him to implead the family of the deceased as a party respondent within two weeks.
The plea has been filed by an IT employee, convicted for simple imprisonment for a period of three months for offences under Section 279 and 304A, IPC along with Section 134(a) and (b) read with Section 187 of the MV Act, by virtue of the judgment and final order dated July 22, 2021 passed by the High Court at Karnataka at Bengaluru.
The petitioner alleged that he had driven the car slowly, but a child came running across the car causing injury. However, it was alleged that the petitioner had driven the said car in a rash and negligent manner, so as to endanger human life. He hit the child by the name of Moses, aged about 4 years at the time of the incident, due to the manner in which the car was driven, causing death on the spot.
One Mr. Nandakumar, working in the Real Estate Business, allegedly saw the petitioner driving a Maruti Car at high speed, from an apartment while he was showing a house to his customer near a temple of New Thippasandra layout and filed a complaint with the Police.
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The High Court had dismissed the Criminal Revision Petition, stating, “It is proved beyond reasonable doubt that it was the accused and accused alone who was driving the car at the time of the accident and caused the death of the child. Further, it is not necessary that to cause negligent driving, the vehicle must always be in high speed. Even though PW-3 stated that the place of the accident being a narrow and short road, driving at high speed is not possible, but, negligent driving does not necessarily want driving with the high-speed. Therefore, the Driving of the accused though not in high speed, but, it was obviously rash and negligent driving. As such, the rash and negligent driving of the accused, causing the death of a child, stand proved beyond reasonable doubt.”
According to the petitioner’s Counsel, during the pendency of the appeal, the appellate court had suspended the sentence subject to deposit of cash of Rs 5000 in lieu of executing surety bond, the amount which is still in deposit with the Appellate Court.