: A Delhi court has acquitted a canter driver in a road accident case as the only eyewitness, the victim’s brother, evidenced that he had not seen the manner in which the accused was driving the vehicle.
Besides the evidence by the eyewitness, Metropolitan Magistrate Manisha Khurana Kakkar of the Saket district courts also took note of the place and time of the occurrence while acquitting accused Rajesh Kumar Bhagat in the case.
According to the complaint lodged with the Defence Colony police in South Delhi, the accident had taken place in the wee hours below an underpass near the Moolchand Hospital in 2012.
The victim was accompanying his brother, Hodal Singh, who was driving a water tanker on the day of the accident.
The tanker had broken down below the underpass. Mr. Singh was repairing it, while the victim was standing behind him. Suddenly, the canter came from the Ashram side and hit the tanker driver’s brother from behind, causing serious injuries to him. Later, he succumbed to his injuries at the AIIMS trauma centre.
The magistrate allowed a plea by counsel for the accused that the accident taken had place not due to rash and negligent driving but owing to the poor light in the underpass.
However, turning hostile by the victim’s brother put paid to the case as the prosecution had no other evidence to prove that the accused was driving the vehicle in a rash and negligent manner.
Mr. Singh denied that he had seen the driver driving the said canter at a high speed. He further stated that he was in fact repairing the tanker and, therefore, did not see in manner in which he was driving the vehicle.
“Thus, keeping in view the place of occurrence and the time of the accident and in the absence of any cogent evidence to show ‘rashness’ and ‘negligence’ on the part of the accused, benefit of doubt has to be extended to the accused,” the magistrate said while acquitting the canter driver.
