By IANS,
New Delhi : A tense looking Sanjeev Nanda, who stood listening with rapt attention to Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar in the crowded court room Wednesday, gave a sigh as the quantum of sentence in the BMW hit-and-run case was deferred till Sep 5.
Wearing a striped grey shirt and formal trousers, Nanda kept wiping his brow every now and then, even as his friends and family members sat a few steps away, worry writ large over their faces.
Nanda, the grandson of former navy chief S.M. Nanda and son of arms dealer Suresh Nanda, was returning in an inebriated state from a party in Gurgaon with his friends Manik Kapoor and Siddharth Gupta in the early hours of Jan 10, 1999 when he ran over six people in south Delhi’s Lodhi Colony.
Kumar, who had found Nanda guilty Tuesday under Section 304 (2) of the Indian Penal Code for culpable homicide not amounting to murder for which the maximum sentence is 10 years, said that the quantum of sentence will now be pronounced Friday.
Before the deferment of the judgment was announced, the worried grandmother of Nanda, wearing a simple blue salwar-kurta and carrying a flashy bag, stood outside the courtroom taking a snack break and talking to her husband in a hushed tone.
Unlike the day before when his family members reacted emotionally at the guilty verdict, Nanda’s mother and others appeared worried but calm even as his friends spoke to him, while constantly giving his arms a squeeze or patting his slouching back.