New Delhi: September 3, 2008 - IR Summery/ Agencies - Businessman Sanjeev Nanda was on Tuesday convicted by a Sessions Court and held guilty for mowing down six people in a BMW hit-and-run case of 1999.

Additional Sessions Judge, Vinod Kumar held Nanda guilty under section 304 (part 2), culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The court upheld testimony by the key witness Sunil Kulkarni that Nanda had backed his car carelessly after the accident, ruthlessly killing the survivors.

Six people had died as the drunken driver drove away. Nanda, grandson of a former Indian navy chief, later tried to destroy all evidence with the help of his co-passenger.

The verdict was reached out after a long drawn-out case which saw a lot of witnesses turn hostile, allegedly under the influence exercised by the powerful Nanda family.

The sentencing will take place on Wednesday and the heir to one of the richest families in the country now faces the prospect of spending the next 10 years of his life in jail.

And though Nanda's grandmother wept uncontrollably in the court insisting that her grandson was innocent, the court ploughed on determined that justice be done and delivered the 87-page order with a censure that the high-and-mighty should not hijack the system of justice by using their money, power and clout.

However, the Defence Lawyer, Ramesh Gupta had made an interesting comment on Tuesday, after the verdict was pronounced. He said: "I hope the media is now happy that he (Sanjeev Nanda) has been convicted and that justice has been done."

From his comment it seems as if television revolution is leading to a judicial revolution.

The question that was being debated on CNN-IBN's Face The Nation was: Sanjeev Nanda convicted: Is the law finally catching up with the influential? On the panel to debate the question were senior lawyer Harish Salve; Nitish Katara's mother Neelam Katara; and celebrity fashion designer Prasad Biddappa.

The Managing Editor of IBN 7, Ashutosh, held bay with CNN-IBN's Sagarika Ghose as the debate progressed.  Full Story