The cabby was on his way to Tiger Hill with passengers when he got into a scuffle with the victim
Rai appealed against the trial court’s judgment of Dec 15, 2022. He was found guilty under IPC section 304, which deals with culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Rai confessed that he had stabbed the victim in a fit of rage due to abusive language used by the victim.
Kolkata: Calcutta High Court recently reduced the 10-year-imprisonment sentence of a Darjeeling cabby to 7 years, acknowledging that it was an incident of road rage and the convict is “remorseful” of stabbing another driver to death while taking his clients to Tiger Hill. The division bench of Justices Rajasekhar Mantha and Reetobroto Kumar Mitra on Oct 5 held that the trial judge, when sentencing convict Nikhil Rai to 10 years’ imprisonment, did not give “credence” to Rai’s post-incident conduct. It was noted that he took the victim to hospital to ensure he was treated. “The facts and circumstances under which the appellant had stabbed the victim was definitely spontaneous road rage and not pre-planned. There is no evidence of prior enmity between the appellant and the victim…The appellant has undergone six years of incarceration. He is remorseful of the incident,” the judge held, reducing the sentence. Rai and others took the victim to Darjeeling Sadar Hospital where he was declared dead. A complaint was lodged at Darjeeling’s Jorebunglow Police Station.
On May 16, 2019, Rai had been carrying tourists from Darjeeling to Tiger Hill for the sunrise. There was traffic congestion and he tried to overtake from the right side. The victim, also a cabby, was on his way to Tiger Hill with a group of CRPF personnel on vacation. Seeing Rai trying to overtake, he stationed his vehicle on the right side, got off and argued with Rai. Rai got off his vehicle and swore to kill the victim. He stabbed the cabby during a subsequent scuffle.