Mumbai: Observing that day-by-day, rash and negligent driving was on the rise, a city magistrate last week sentenced a 65-year-old driver to simple imprisonment of three months for knocking down a pedestrian with his car near Priyadarshini Park in 2018 and causing him three fractures.
The pedestrian, Shankarlal Purohit, a cook by profession, was walking from Babulnath to his home in Asha Nagar and was at a turning near the Priyadarshini Park Garden signal, when the car driven by the accused, Prafulla Swain, speeding towards Hanging Gardens, hit him. He fell and was unable to get up. Swain took him to hospital, where it was found that he had suffered two rib fractures on the left side of his chest and one on leg. Purohit lodged an FIR at Malabar Hill police station.
During the trial, a pedestrian who had witnessed the incident had appeared as an eyewitness. Swain had claimed in his defence that Purohit was reading a newspaper and collided with the car. The court did not believe this version and referred to the injuries suffered by the victim while dismissing it.
What did the magistrate say in the judgement?
Metropolitan Magistrate N A Patel referred to police documents on the situation of the road and said the spot of the accident was beside a slum. “When the area is crowded, it is also a residential area and there is a turn on the road, it is expected from the driver of the vehicle to drive the vehicle at a slow speed or at a reasonable speed,” the court said.
It added that in such areas, generally pedestrians walk on the side of the road and therefore, a driver should be at a reasonable speed so that if someone is crossing the road, he should be able to control his vehicle immediately.
In spite of this situation on the road, “the accused was driving a vehicle at high speed,” the court said. The court said he had ignored the circumstances on the road resulting in the accident. “Driving a vehicle at a high speed on a crowded road certainly amounts to rash and negligent driving,” Magistrate Patel stated in his judgment of May 9.
While deciding the sentence to be imposed, the court said that day-by-day, incidents of rash and negligent driving were increasing and many people were losing their lives…“In cases of rash and negligent act if leniency is shown, then it will adversely affect society and such type of incidents will never stop.” It said further that the accused was 65 years old and even then, he had not taken reasonable care, as a result of which the accident occurred and grievous injuries were caused to the informant, and proceeded to sentence him to three months’ jail.
