New Delhi, July 20 (Inditop.com) Though it reduced his jail term by three years, the Delhi High Court was very cutting in its criticism of Sanjeev Nanda, describing him as a “merchant of death stalking the roads of Delhi”.
Justice Kailash Gambhir, in his judgement reducing Nanda’s sentence to two years from five, said the accident was “all on account of his own doing” and that he had no real sympathy for the families of the six people he had mowed down under his BMW in 1999.
Justice Gambhir in his judgement said: “Sanjeev may have undergone trauma and agony and there is no doubt he has faced trial for about nine years which must have affected his life, education wise, career wise and marriage wise but it is all on account of his own doing. There is an old adage which says that ‘as you sow, so shall you reap’.”
The court turned down Sanjeev’s counsel contention that he had paid Rs.65 lakhs to the families of the victims, and said: “He did so more with a view to secure bail than out of compassion for the victims. If he was really so compassionate towards the victims, why did he take to his heels after causing the accident, knowing fully well the enormity of the casualties.”
“One also cannot lose sight of the fact that every possible effort was made to destroy the evidence, to win over the witnesses, and to influence the prosecution and the police. The unholy nexus between the defence and the prosecution as shown by NDTV needs no reminder.
“A section of our society who wields money and muscle power labours under a mistaken belief that by use of their such power they can escape from the clutches of law but what they forget is the maxim – ‘Be howsoever high you are, the law is above you’.
“Let us also not lose sight of the plight of those families who have lost their dear ones and their lives have been plunged into darkness by a singular act of this young man, who for his own enjoyment was stalking the roads of Delhi as a merchant of death,” the judge noted.
