By IANS,
New Delhi : Capping a nine-year trial, a Delhi court Friday awarded five years rigorous imprisonment to businessman Sanjeev Nanda for crushing to death six people under his BMW in the dark hours of Jan 10, 1999.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar, who had Tuesday found the grandson of former navy chief S.M. Nanda and son of arms dealer Suresh Nanda guilty under Section 304 (2) of the Indian Penal Code for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, said this case was graver than that of Mumbai’s Alister Anthony Pareira who had run over seven people.
“If the present (BMW) case is compared with Pareira’s case, it would be found that this case is much more grave than the later case as in this Sanjeev Nanda was found with presence of ethyl alcohol to the extent of 0.115 percent in his blood whereas Pareira was found to contain 0.112 percent of ethyl alcohol, which was on lower end of harsher sentence,” the judge noted in his eight-page sentence order.
A year ago, on Sep 6, 2007, the Bombay High Court had sentenced Pareira to three years in prison and a fine of Rs.500,000 for running over and killing seven people sleeping on the footpath.
“In Pareira’s case people were sleeping on the footpath, whereas in the BMW case people were standing on the road which meant the convict was in a position to clearly see them on the road. Pareira’s car stopped at the spot, whereas Nanda checked the car under which the injured were entangled and were crying and thereafter again drove away the car, so this case require the sentence on the higher end,” the judge said.
Refuting the defence allegation that Nanda’s age should be kept in mind while giving the punishment, the judge said: “Sanjeev Nanda was already exposed to a Western culture where drunken driving is taboo and if someone indulges in it the consequences are very harsh.”
“A person who had got driving licence from USA can be considered to be having a higher degree of knowledge of consequences of drunken driving. Therefore, on account of his young age, no benefit can be given to him.”
The 30-year-old, who nine years ago had run over six people in south Delhi’s Lodhi Colony while returning drunk from a party in Gurgaon, was taken to Tihar Jail soon after the sentence was pronounced.
Dressed in a beige kurta, Nanda was surrounded by policemen.
“The grant of handsome compensation to the families of the victims after a very short duration from the offence, however, leans heavily in favour of Nanda. I feel that though the victims have been compensated but the primarily accountability of Nanda is towards the society,” said the judge.
“The question is whether a man on the road is safe and whether the drunken drivers would keep on committing such offences. This accountability to the society can only be suitably answered if a substantial jail term is provided to him, though it would not be appropriate to award him a lighter sentence,” the judge further added.
Businessman Rajiv Gupta, found guilty of destroying evidence, was given one year imprisonment and a fine of Rs.10,000.
His two domestic helps Bhola Nath and Shyam Singh, also held guilty of destroying evidence, were sentenced for six months and fined Rs.100 each. All three were given bail soon after the ruling on a surety of Rs.10,000 each.
Pareira had also been convicted under Section 304 (2) in which the maximum sentence is 10 years. In most cases, the conviction is under Section 304 (1) – causing death by rash and negligent act – in which the maximum sentence is two years.
Nanda’s nine months in jail will be counted as time served.
In its ruling, the court had said the rich and influential had hijacked the entire criminal justice and trial system.
Public prosecutor Rajeev Mohan expressed satisfaction over the sentence: “This was an exceptional case where nobody from the victims’ families was interested in helping the prosecution. In all other high-profile cases, victims stood by the whole case.”
“Deterrent punishment is the need of the hour, so that the right message is sent across the society to all potential offenders,” Mohan said.
He also added that the expensive BMW car was an imported one and was not even registered in India.
Nanda’s counsel Prem Kumar said: “This is a harsher punishment and we will appeal in the high court against it after going through the copy of the judgement.”
Countering the prosecution’s demand of the maximum punishment, defence lawyer Ramesh Gupta pleaded for reasonable punishment.
“Justice is at stake… ultimately judges have to decide whether it’s a media trial or a court trial. Media shouldn’t exceed its limits… then judges won’t be able to decide independently on the issues,” he said, referring to the media coverage of the high-profile case.
He said his client had already paid Rs.6.5 million as compensation to the next of kin of the dead and the injured.
The court Tuesday acquitted Nanda’s friend Manik Kapoor who was sitting next to Nanda at the time of the accident citing lack of evidence.