THE party ended in a flash-in a sudden, screeching, high-velocity impact between metal and human flesh. The three inebriated, super-rich Delhi brats were zipping home from a late-night-out in their sleek bmw. It was the wee hours of January 10 when the script went horribly wrong. Five personsone crpf jawan, two Home Guards and two civilianswere mowed down and two others critically wounded as the state-of-the-art limo blasted into a Lodi Road police picket.
Far from being struck by remorse, Sanjeev Nanda sped away to companion Siddharth Gupta's residence in Golf Links, one of the poshest localities in town. There, the latter's father Rajiv Gupta helped get the bloody evidence washed off the car.
Common criminals? The youths hail from highly affluent backgrounds. Main accused Sanjeev Nanda is the grandson of former naval chief Adml S.M. Nanda, and studies at the Wharton School of Business. Gupta, third accused Manik Kapoor, and just about everyone else involved in what has become a high-profile legal case are equally well-heeled. Hardly the kind who would be unaware of the law. Question is, will justice be done? Given the vagaries of the judicial system and the might of money, one's not sure. Even if it's such a cut-and-dried case.
Till now, all the demonisation has been reserved for maniacal bus-drivers and highway trucks blazing through city streets on long hauls. But, significantly, incidents of affluent children causing fatal traffic hit-and-runs is on the increase in metros.
Fast car, fat wallets, big names... Behind all the easy stereotyping lie some hard truths. The nouveau-riche are not just aggressive on the roads, but arrogant towards the law too. The bmw crash is a classic case. It took an alert sub-inspector, Jagdish Pandey, and a posse from the Lodi Road thana to trace the car and the accused to Golf Links. What they ran into was a typical wall of snobbery.
Says Lodi Road sho Vimlesh Yadav, who led the posse: When we did reach Golf Links, they refused to open the gates. We were made to wait an hour which, as we later learnt, was to allow one of the accused to escape. It was only after the cops got 'tough' that they were led to the Gupta residence. Once we were in the house, we found no remorse. Instead, names were dropped freely and we were threatened obliquely, adds Yadav.
Investigations into the case revealed the sheer arrogance with which the rich treat the law of the land. Sanjeev Nanda didn't have an Indian, but an international driving licence, which has no legal validity in India. The bmw also had no registration papers; worse, it had a foreign number plate which had gone unchecked till then.
Since the accident and their subsequent arrests, two of those charged under sections 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder); 338 (causing grievous hurt by act of endangering life or personal safety of others); and 210 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or
giving false information to screen offenders) have been given bail while Sanjeev Nanda awaits his turn.
Police and legal officers say there're too many loopholes in the Motor Vehicles Act (mva), 1988, and the four traffic-related sections of the Indian Penal Code (ipc) for any good lawyer to miss. And the accused have only the best. The act is weak and outdated and is held responsible for widespread traffic violations and accidents.
Says Amod Kanth, joint commissioner of police, southern range: Delhi has over 33 lakh vehicles. This is more than the total vehicle population of major metrosMadras, Calcutta and Bombayput together.The average speed in Delhi is not less than 60 km per hour except in congested areas. Traffic management has become difficult in view of the weak law. The Delhi police has often told the Centre that the mva's provisions need to be beefed up but nothing has happened, since any amendment needs the concurrence of the states too.
Given this, more and more kidsof very affluent parentageare breaking the law with impunity. Points out Kanth: This has become a thrust area for the Delhi Police. More than 93 per cent of heinous crimes in south Delhi are by first-time offenders. Most of these boys come from middle-class or affluent familieswith sound financial backgrounds, enjoying social and political clout and exploiting weak laws.
Not surprising. Penalties for violating traffic rules are negligible. Jumping a red light or violating the stop line invites a fine of a paltry Rs 100. Even if someone's booked a second time for reckless driving he coughs up a fine of Rs 2,000. Sections 279 of the ipc (rash driving/riding on a public way), along with other sections like 337 (causing hurt by an act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 attract a fine of Rs 1,000-2,000 and imprisonment for six months while section 304 A (causing death by a rash and negligent act) has a Rs 2,000 penalty and two-and-a-half years imprisonment.
More disturbing than poor legislation is the abysmal rate of conviction. Says Akshay Kumar, a lawyer in the Patiala House courts: Offences under these sections are bailable, even if the driving has resulted in the death of one or more persons. The acquittal rate in accident cases is about 90-95 per cent. Rarely does an accused get convicted. Senior defence counsel in the bmw case, Ramesh Gupta, waxes sarcastic. Why only conviction rate? Even the apprehension rate of traffic violations is very low.
Clearly, the rash of new swanky cars on the road with fast pickups and heavy bodies have spawned these speed demons. Says one official: Unlike the Maruti 800s which were easier to control, the surfeit of big and fast-moving vehiclesTata Sumos, Sierras, Pajeros, bmwshas altered traffic patterns, particularly in the metropolitan areas.
Also altered is the value system that's responsible for brats going berserk on the roads. Says traffic expert P.S. Pasricha, a former special inspector-general of police, traffic, and now joint commissioner of police, law and order, Mumbai: Money inflates your ego. Rich people have no control over their children. This is why we see more instances of rash drivinginstances where the driver's mowed down a pedestrian but kept on going. Psychologists also refer to the wrong attitudes parents encourage in children. Adds Pasricha: Mothers gloat over how well their 14-year-old son drives the car. They should feed commonsense and humility into their children.
But that may not happen too soonespecially if the bmw accused manage to get away. As for the victims, the pros and cons of police trafficking are being debated more than their compensation. Abdul Jabbar and Mohammad Laddan, kin of the victims who were swept and dragged by the bmw for over 100 mts, are too illiterate and poor to even find a lawyer who can file a preliminary compensation claim on behalf of the deceased. Clearly, in a rich man's world, justice is the poor victim.
