A Delhi court has upheld the conviction of a man for stealing three mobile phones from passengers of a DTC bus.

However, the court provided him some relief by reducing his sentence from two years to 18 months’ imprisonment considering that he is the sole breadwinner of his family. The accused had stolen the phones when the bus was on New Rohtak Road near Sarai Rohilla bus stand in Central Delhi in 2016. When the victims one after other raised an alarm about their phones being stolen, the accused got down from the bus and tried to escape, but three passengers chased him down and recovered two of their stolen phones from his possession.

He was convicted by the Metropolitan Magistrate court. The accused had moved an appeal against a Metropolitan Magistrate court judgment sentencing him to two years of imprisonment with a fine of ₹10,000.

‘Wrongly convicted’

His counsel argued that he had been wrongly convicted as SIM cards were missing from the phones recovered from him and they were formatted.

However, Additional Sessions Judge Sanjay Khanagwal dismissed this argument.