A man's failure to carry the registration paper of his vehicle with him does not entitle other motorists to mow him down,a Delhi court has observed while reducing the two-year jail term to one,given to a truck driver for crushing a biker to death 11 years ago. District Judge R K Gauba reduced the sentence of truck driver Mohan Shyam,a Badarpur resident,saying the victim too was responsible for the accident as he was riding the motor cycle without helmet and while taking right turn on a traffic junction,gave no indication. The court said victim Ravinder Kumar's motor cycle was not having the registration plate as the vehicle was purchased only 10 days prior to the accident. "It appeared the deceased was yet to obtain the registration papers. It was true that he was not expected to take the vehicle on to the road without proper registration documents. But,failure on his part to do so would not give licence to other motorists on the road to mow him down," the judge said. The judge said though the investigating officer had not seized the driving licence of the victim but it does not mean he was not possessing a valid driving licence. According to the police,the accident took place at Khanpur-Chirag Delhi road in May 2001 when a rashly-driven truck came at a speed and mowed down a person on motor cycle. Kumar,who was working with Hotel Park Royal at Nehru Place,was riding the motor cycle at the time of the incident without registration number and helmet. He was taken to All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here where he was declared "brought dead." Challenging the trial court's judgement,convict Shyam had claimed on the date of accident,he was not driving the offending truck but was a driver of the DTC bus. The court,however,refused to accept Shyam's submission as he had failed to provide any evidence regarding his claim. It also refused to release Shyam on probation saying the existence of family requiring his support was also of no help "in as much as one must not lose sight of the fact that the deceased (Kumar) may also have been the sole bread earner of his family. A precious life came to an untimely end on account of negligent driving of a commercial vehicle by Shyam." The judge said failure to use a helmet does give rise to the possibility of Kumar also having been careless. "But then,the omission to wear helmet would not be the cause of accident,though it may have been an added factor for the consequences that followed," the court said.
