P S JOSE Vs. STATE OF KERALA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) A tragic fusion of two events snuffed the life of a young boy aged 15 in a trice on 3-9-1983. Drivers of two vehicles - a car and a lorry - were responsible for the tragedy and both were prosecuted in the same trial for rash or negligent driving. The driver of the car was acquitted. Aggrieved by the acquittal of the car driver and also the order by which lenient sentence was awarded to the lorry driver, deceased's father filed this revision. In the meanwhile, the lorry driver filed an appeal before the Sessions Court challenging the conviction and sentence passed on him.

(2.) When the revision came up for arguments, it was felt that the appeal pending in the Sessions Court and this revision should be heard together and hence the appeal has been withdrawn to this court. Arguments of counsel for all parties including the Additional Public Prosecutor were heard. Parties can be referred to as they are ranked in the revision.

(3.) The events concatented into the tragedy are the following on the fateful day around noon, a fiat car was driven by the 3rd respondent along the National Highway from North to South. He stopped the car on his left side at a place called Potta and he abruptly opened the left front door of the car. It was the time when the deceased boy who was riding his bycycle from north to south reached just near the car. The abrupt spreading of the door of the car knocked the cyclist down. The boy fell on the tarred road, but also just then the lorry driven by the 2nd respondent from north to south had also reached there. The lorry ran over the cyclist. He was removed to the nearest hospital, but only to be pronounced that he was dead.