A Delhi court has quashed the jail term of a motorcyclist, who was held guilty of killing a pedestrian, observing that the victim's negligence could not be ruled out as he was crossing a road without a pedestrian path.
Special Judge Pulastya Pramachala acquitted the man of the offences of causing death by negligence and rash driving under the IPC and set aside the jail term of four months awarded to him by a magisterial court earlier this year.
"The site plan of the place of accident does not refer to any designated pedestrian path existing at the place of accident. As per Rule 11 of the Rules of the Road Regulations 1989, pedestrians have the right of way at uncontrolled pedestrian crossings. It is implicit in this rule that pedestrians would have the right of way on pedestrian crossing, meaning the pedestrians do not have a right of way at any other place of road except the pedestrian crossing.
"Therefore, there remains scope of a situation where an accident takes place on account of some fault or negligence on the part of pedestrian, while crossing the road from some different place than the zebra crossing," the court said.
The court also said that in such road accident cases, people have a tendency to blame the vehicle drivers.
"It is a normal tendency of people that whenever an accident takes place, the blame is put on the vehicle rider, though it is settled law that mere fact of an accident taking place cannot be an example of rash or negligent driving.
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"It is the duty of the prosecution to establish that accident took place on account of rash or negligent driving and for that purpose the prosecution has to elicit the relevant facts regarding the manner in which the accident took place from the witnesses," it said.
According to the prosecution, Nathu Singh was crossing road near Pandav Nagar in East Delhi on December 4, 2006 when a motorcycle hit him.
Singh succumbed to injuries and a complaint was lodged by his wife and daughter who were present at the accident spot, it said.
The accused, however, had denied all the allegations and claimed that the victim was at fault.
In his appeal against the magisterial court order awarding him jail term, the man claimed that the investigating officer did not cite any independent witnesses, except the victim's family members.
The sessions court, while allowing his appeal, said, "Investigating Officer apparently did not examine any independent witness from that place, who could have given a neutral account of manner in which such accident took place. In these circumstances, I find appellant to be at least entitled for benefit of doubt.