Taking note of the conduct of a driver in taking the injured victim to hospital soon after the accident and not fleeing from the spot, the High Court of Karnataka has reduced his imprisonment to one day from one year while confirming the conviction for causing death of a person by driving a car in rash and negligent manner.

Justice V. Srishananda passed the order while partly allowing the petition filed by Riyaz Ahmed, a resident of Pakshikere in Dakshina Kannada district.

Mitigating circumstance

The court said that the conduct of Riyaz in shifting the injured person to hospital serves as a strong mitigating circumstance to reduce the tenure of his imprisonment.

Riyaz, who was driving a car, had knocked down Anand Shetty, a pedestrian, on national highway-66 near Panambur beach road on July 15, 2015. Shetty, who was shifted to a hospital by Riyaz and his son, succumbed to the injuries later.

It was argued on behalf of Riyaz that sentence imposed on him was harsh as, being a driver of the car involved in the accident, he did not abandon the victim.

The court, upon perusing the records, noted that Riyaz had stopped his vehicle, personally helped in transporting Shetty for medical treatment. The court also noted from the records that subsequently Riyaz himself met with an accident and he is having a rod implant in his right leg and he is now eking out livelihood by doing other small jobs as he could not take up the task of a professional driver now.

Hiked compensation

On the court’s suggestion, the family of the victim did not oppose plea for reducing the sentence provided some additional amount of compensation is paid in addition to the compensation paid through the motor vehicle accident claims tribunal.

Following this, the court sentenced Riyaz till the rise of the court while directing him to pay ₹1 lakh compensation to the wife and son of the victim. However, the court made it clear the if he failed to pay the compensation amount in two instalments of ₹50,000 each by June 30, the imprisonment of one year would automatically be restored.