A magistrate court in Girgaon on Thursday acquitted a 36-year-old woman - a Malabar Hill resident, accused of rash driving due to which a two-wheeler rider fell and suffered a fracture injury to his arm in 2017, stating that her car’s tyre had burst and the mishap could have occurred due to the technical fault.
The court noted that the investigating officer in her testimony had said that the probe revealed that the tyre of the Maruti Swift car had burst and the accused Indu Kapahi had not noticed this fact. It also considered that upon inspection of the car by the police it was found that the vehicle’s front right tyre had burst.
“If the tyre of a running vehicle was burst, naturally the driver of the vehicle would lose balance. It is a technical fault and if an accident occurred due to tyre burst of the vehicle certainly it cannot be termed as rash and negligent driving,” the court said.
Metropolitan Magistrate Nadeem A. Patel stated in the order that therefore, it is doubtful whether it was really the fault of the accused or a technical fault.
“The possibility of an accident due to technical fault cannot be ruled out,” the order read. It added that it is incumbent upon the prosecution to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was driving the vehicle in a rash and negligent manner.
The incident took place on July 19, 2017, around 11:30 am at Gamadia Road when the complainant Suryakant Rathod was going towards Grant Road on his bike. The car had hit Rathod, he had fallen and sustained a fracture injury to his left arm. Kapahi had taken him to Breach Candy hospital for treatment. She was booked by the Gaondevi police station under Sec 279 (rash driving) and Sec 338 (negligent act endangering life) of the IPC upon his complaint.
