ANANDASINGH NEGGI Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioner, a motor driver, was prosecuted in the court of the Magistrate 1st class, Nawarangpur on a charge under Section 304-A I. P. C. and was convicted and sentenced to undergo R. I. for a period of 2 months and to pay a fine of Rs. 100 and in default to undergo R. I. for a further period of 15 days. His appeal was dismissed by the Sessions Judge, Jeypore.

(2.) THE facts which are no more in dispute are that in the evening of 16-3-64 the appellant was driving an ambulance van bearing No. ORK 870 and was proceeding from Umarkote towards Jhorigam. The road is 24 ft wide of which the morrumed portion is 12 ft. at the centre. At a place near the village Mendhabeda. 3 women labourers were found proceeding on the right side of the road. On hearing the sound of the approaching vehicle, two of them crossed the road and went to its left side. Immediately after, the 3rd woman, Guni Malliani turned to cross the road to its left side and seeing this the petitioner turned the vehicle to further left of the road obviously with a view to prevent it from running over the woman. But unfortunately. Guni Malliani dashed against the mud-guard of the vehicle, fell down on the road and died immediately thereafter. After the accident, the vehicle stopped at a distance of 20 ft. ahead from the place of occurrence. Information was lodged at the Thana the same evening and autopsy of the dead body was held next day. The doctor found as many as 12 injuries on the person of the deceased out of which, however, the most important are injuries Nos. 4 and 11. Injury No. 4 is a bruise on the upper right of the abdomen and injury No. 11 is a bruise on the middle of the upper part of the left back. On dissection of injury No. 4 it was found that the lobes of the liver have been damaged and on the dissection of injury No. 11 fracture of the lower half of the right shoulder blade at 4 places and fracture of 6 ribs were found. The doctor was of the opinion that injuries Nos. 4 and 11 could be caused by a sudden dash of the vehicle or due to a fall on a hard substance like stone. He, however, opined that none of the injuries appears to have been caused as a result of the vehicle running over the deceased. In fact it is not the prosecution case that the deceased was run over by the vehicle.

(3.) SECTION 304-A runs thus: "whoever causes the death of any person by doing any rash or negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both. " According to the prosecution case, the rash or negligent act of the petitioner consisted firstly, in driving the vehicle at a high speed and secondly, in not blowing the horn. It is P. Ws. 2, 3 and 4 who say that the vehicle was running at a high speed, but what actually meant by high speed has not been clarified. These witnesses are illiterate village folk and one cannot depend on their conception of what high speed is to arrive at a conclusion that the petitioner was driving the vehicle rashly or negligently. The investigating officer, P. W. 7 who reached the place of accident immediately after the occurrence found that the vehicle had stopped at a distance of 20 feet from the place of accident. On the basis thereof the Inspector of Motor Vehicles opined that the speed of the vehicle could not have been more than 16 miles per hour. P. Ws. 3 and 4 have deposed that there were stones on the road and this is a circumstance which makes it further improbable that the vehicle could have been running at a very high speed. These are the circumstances which ought to have weighed with the courts below to accept the testimony of the Motor Vehicle inspector regarding the speed of the vehicle in preference to the testimony on this point given by unsophisticated villagers like P. Ws. 2, 3 and 4. That the driver had not blown the horn has been spoken by P. Ws. 2, 3 and 4 and the courts below have accepted that evidence. But it is clear from the testimony of the witnesses themselves that non-blowing of the horn was in no way responsible for the accident. P. W. 2 who was one of the companions of the deceased stated that "on hearing the sound of the vehicle, we crossed the road to the left side". P. W. 3 deposed that "people knew that the vehicle was coming from its sound. Two of them crossed the road and the 3rd was hit while coming". P. W. 4 who was walking at a short distance behind the unfortunate woman stated, "we could know the coming of the vehicle from behind even when the vehicle was at a long distance. " The purpose of blowing a horn is only to make the people aware that a vehicle is coming from behind but in this case, it is clear that non-blowing of the horn was of no consequence because from the sound of the vehicle people knew that a big vehicle was coming from behind.