The Patan High Court on Sunday ordered an additional jail term of four years to Prithvi Malla, who is accused of killing a woman in an incident of drunk driving in December 2019. Earlier on March 22, 2022, a lower court had sentenced Malla to six months in prison in a vehicular homicide case.

Deputy Registrar Mandira Shahi, also the court’s spokesperson, informed that a division bench of judges Rajendra Kharel and Jagadish Ghimire issued the verdict to sentence Malla to prison and slapped a fine of Rs40,000.

“The full text of the verdict will be issued in a few weeks time and it will be sent to the District Police Office for the order’s implementation,” said Shahi.

Shahi informed that the full text will be available in around two months as there are other pending cases at the court.

The high court on May 2 had convicted Malla in the death of 38-year-old Lila Devkota in a drunk-driving incident in Budhanilkantha, Kathmandu on December 14, 2019.

Devkota was walking along the footpath on her way back from Sankata Temple on New Road when the car driven by Malla struck her, lost control and rammed into an electricity pole.

Eyewitnesses said Malla was so drunk that he could barely walk straight. The car was full of beer bottles and reeked of alcohol.

Following the incident, Devkota was rushed to the nearby Neuro Hospital. Moments later, she was pronounced dead.

Malla, who was 21 then, was taken into police custody after the accident.

After receiving a report from the police, the District Attorney’s Office had filed vehicular homicide charges against Malla at the Kathmandu District Court on January 6, 2020, seeking a jail term of up to 10 years for the accused. Three days later, the court sent Malla to jail until a final verdict was announced.

But Malla barely spent any time in jail as he was admitted to the Basundhara-based Chirayu Hospital almost immediately after the hospital provided the prison with Malla’s medical diagnosis, which showed that he was suffering from hypertension, severe depression with adjustment disorder, along with asthma, leading to blood pressure and oxygen saturation problems.

A year later, in March, 2020, the court sentenced Malla to six months in prison and fined him Rs1,000 for the offence.

The district attorney’s office challenged the district court verdict and appealed at the Patan High Court, stating that the lower court’s verdict was lenient given the gravity of the incident.

The Patan High Court had also sent him to judicial custody until the final verdict.

Meanwhile, on July 15, 2020, a division bench of Supreme Court Justices Sapana Pradhan Malla and Manoj Kumar Sharma quashed the earlier decision by the Kathmandu District Court and the Patan High Court and ordered his release on a Rs500,000 bail.

During the hearing, the apex court held that given his medical history, the Covid-19 pandemic situation and slim chances of him absconding or tampering with evidence, Malla could be released on bail.