Almost a decade after six people were mowed down in the BMW hit-and-run case, a trial court on Tuesday convicted Sanjeev Nanda, grandson of former Naval chief S M Nanda, for committing manslaughter or ‘‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’’.

Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar held that the vehicle that killed those six people early one morning in January 1999 was a BMW car and not a truck, as claimed by the defence, and that Nanda was behind the wheel, inebriated, when he dragged three of them under the bonnet of his car.

Nanda, who had already spent nine months in detention, has been convicted under Section 304(II) IPC which has a maximum penalty of 10 years’ jail.

The sentence is expected on Wednesday. The court rejected the plea that he could be tried only for the offence of rash and negligent driving under Section 304A punishable with a maximum of two years. Acquitting Nanda’s co-passenger Manik Kapur for lack of evidence, the court convicted Rajeev Gupta and his servants Bhola Nath and Shyam Singh Rana, for destroying evidence.

 Lawyers say punishment harsh and excessive

The conviction of Sanjeev Nanda under the stringent section 304 Part (II) of IPC was termed by his lawyers as ‘‘harsh and excessive.’’

Nanda’s lawyer Ramesh Gupta said, “My client is paying for being rich. If there was a truck driver in Sanjeev’s place, the case would have been forgotten by the media and the accused would have been convicted under 304A and granted bail. But Sanjeev and his family were hounded by the media and they have influenced the judgement.’’

‘‘It seems only when there is a conviction is justice done. They (the media) must be ruing now that he has escaped being convicted under a section which prescribes life or even death penalty,’’ he said.

Gupta said even when the Supreme Court has said 304A is attracted even in cases of extreme recklessness, the trial court invoked 304.