Noida: A Delhi resident accused of crushing a scooter rider to death with his Jaguar car in 2022 was acquitted by an additional district and sessions court on Friday. The court held that neither rash driving nor negligence could be proved in this case.Judge Vijay Kumar Himanshu said the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, and the accused, Samuel Andrew Pyster, was entitled to the benefit of doubt. The court directed him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and two sureties of the amount to comply with the provisions of section 437A of the CrPC.On the morning of Dec 4, 2022, Deepika Tripathi, an employee of a real estate firm, was on her way to work at E-Square in the Supertech Building, Sector 96. Around 9.30am, as she was about to enter her office, a Jaguar car with an Odisha registration, being driven by Pyster, approaching from the opposite direction, collided with her. She later succumbed to her injuries at the hospital.A case was registered with the sector 39 police on the complaint of the deceased’s brother, Rajnarayan Tripathi. Police initially registered a case under sections 279 (rash driving), 304A (causing death due to negligence) and 427 (causing loss of more than Rs 50 by mischief) against the accused. The section was later improved to 302 (culpable homicide amounting to murder), but it was not accepted by the court.The court framed charges under IPC section 304 and 427 on October 23, 2024, but the accused preferred to undergo trial, denying his guilt.The prosecution presented seven witnesses, including the plaintiff and 3 eyewitnesses, all deployed with the security department of the Supertech building.SPP Chavanpal Singh argued that repair work was going on and one side of the road was closed. The accused drove his Jaguar car at high speed even after spotting the victim, coming from the opposite side, and dashed against the scooty, causing her death.Defence counsel Aditya Sharma contended that the victim came from the wrong side and, from the middle of the road, suddenly turned to the right to enter her office. He added that unlike a hit-and-run case, Pyster hired to take the injured to hospital and called the police at the site of the incident.Appearing as PW3, Amlesh Rai, a security officer, said that people used to take the easy path on the wrong side to reach the office, and the road was busy with commuters going to the office, so driving at high speed was not possible. He further said that the Jaguar car came from the right direction and the scooty came from the wrong direction.Guard Pankaj Tiwary said the woman was approaching the gate from the left when a speeding car hit her. She had signaled for it to stop, but the driver struck her, causing her to fall. The driver then reversed and tried to flee, but stopped about 100 metres away after a tyre burst. Crowd gathered, and police arrived.The accused, appearing as a defence witness, said that the airbags of his car did not deploy even after the accident, as he drove at a normal speed.Having heard all sides, the court said that, in the light of the attending circumstances, it felt that the incident was merely an accident and there was no intention or knowledge to cause the death of the deceased.“The claim of the prosecution that, due to construction work, one way was open so the scooty came from the wrong side does not push the case into rashness and negligence because abrupt turning from the middle of the road was not anticipated by the accused. So the court is of the view that even if the accused was running his car at high speed, he did not display the conduct of rashness and negligence,” the court ruled.
