Society suffering heavily on account of drunken driving: Court

A Delhi court has refused to set aside the four-day jail term awarded to a man in a drunken driving case, saying that due to such cases "society at large is suffering heavily."
Additional Sessions Judge Girish Kathpalia, while dismissing the appeal of Delhi resident Sanjeev Dua, said that setting aside the sentence awarded by the trial court and merely imposing a financial penalty on him would do more harm as he would not understand the seriousness of his offence.
"Awarding a financial penalty in such cases would do more harm to the appellant (Dua), who would not understand the seriousness of his offence.

"It would also send wrong signal in the society at large, which is suffering heavily on account of cases of drunken driving in which the victims are very often killed or rendered disabled for life," the judge said.
Dua, who had pleaded guilty before the trial court, was sentenced to four days in jail and a fine of Rs 3,600 was also imposed on him for driving a car in an inebriated state on the evening of October 9, 2014.
According to police, the alcohol content in Dua's body was measured by a breath analyser and was found to be 23 times more then the permissible limit.

As the car driven by Dua was not owned by him, he did not have a valid driving license, insurance papers and pollution control certificate, it said.

Dua's counsel claimed that it was his first offence. Some relatives had come to his house and he consumed liquor. When he had gone out to bring some food, he was caught by the police.
"The punishment prescribed under Motor Vehicles Act in such cases for first offence is imprisonment upto six months while the Magistrate has awarded simple imprisonment for only four days, thereby leaving ample scope for reformation of the appellant," the court observed.

Terming the appeal as meritless, the court dismissed it and ordered that Dua be taken into custody to serve the sentence of four days.