Delhi: Court convicts driver who mowed down two wedding caterers, acquits passengers

A Delhi court has convicted the driver of a Swift car who mowed down a group of wedding caterers, killing two men, in 2014. At the same time, it acquitted the two passengers in the car noting that “no reasonable man can be expected to foresee” that the vehicle could be used as a weapon.

As per the prosecution, on January 18, 2014, 11 wedding caterers were returning from a wedding at a local farmhouse near the Gurgaon border area on foot. They were confronted by a group of five persons, including minors, in a Swift car who asked why they were walking on the road and said, “kya sadak tumhare baap ki hai”.

The accused persons first assaulted the caterers and left, before returning to assault them again. This time, the caterers put up a fight. The accused returned a third time and rammed their car into the group, injuring two persons, Raju and Ramdev, who later died.

Additional Sessions Judge Parveen Singh convicted the driver, Surender, under sections of murder, while the two passengers, Subhash and Aladin, were acquitted under sections of murder and common intention. The ASJ said it can be said they had an intention similar to that of the driver “but they cannot be beyond reasonable doubt found to be having the same intention as that of the accused Surender”.

“Applying the test of reasonable foreseeability and the fact that the common intention was to assault the said group again, if accused Surender had acted on his own, it cannot be said that the other accused could have foreseen such an eventuality. It was only accused Surender who had complete control of the vehicle, and no reasonable man can be expected to foresee that in furtherance of the common intention to commit an assault, the said vehicle can be used as a weapon as had been done by accused Surender,” the court said.

The court said it has been proved that Surender was the driver of the vehicle that rammed into the group, and “this act of ramming the said car into the group was so imminently dangerous that the said act must in all probabilities cause death…”

On the culpability of the two co-accused persons, Subhash and Aladin, the court said, “It is quite probable that the accused, in order to seek revenge and to teach a lesson to the group, decided to return for third time.”

Advocate Mukul, the lawyer for the accused persons, contended that the two men had no control over the vehicle, and thus the act of ramming the vehicle into the group belonged to Surender alone.