After the horrific incident in Delhi’s Sultanpuri, where a woman died after being dragged for 7kms by a car, similar cases are being reported from across India. The group of men arrested in the case, were apparently driving under the influence of alcohol.
It’s no news that drunk driving continues to be a menace in India. Every now and then, cases of accidents and fatalities caused due to people driving in inebriated state dot headlines.
There has been much debate about the laws that seek to prevent and punish drunk driving, and their strict enforcement, as well. News18 takes a deeper delve into the issue:
In a recent piece published in the Quint, Aishwarya Karunakaran, a law graduate, described the pain of having lost her relatives to an incident of drunk driving.
“On 20 July 2022, my uncle Ravi Shankar, a Thrissur resident was killed after one of the two luxury cars racing with each other hit his taxi, killing him instantly. My aunt Maya Ravishankar, cousin Vidya Menon, niece Gayathri Menon, and their taxi driver Rajan, were also in the car and suffered serious injuries. Their crime? Using the Kottekkad road to return home after a visit to Guruvayoor temple,” she said.
Karunakaran talked about how the incident had broken her family at its very core. In the same breath, she called for stricter charges against the people accused in such cases. “Until now, such crimes have been charged with Section 304. However, if we want change, if we want to protect innocent lives, we need to charge such crimes under Section 300,” she said.
But First, What About Drunk Driving Offence Laws in India?
Before going into charges to be taken after an incident has taken place, let’s talk about the deterrents against drunk driving in India.
In India, the legal drinking age varies from state to state, ranging from 18 to 25 years, with some states outright prohibiting the consumption of alcohol. Alcohol consumption is completely prohibited in Gujarat, Bihar, Manipur, and Nagaland, as well as the union territory of Lakshadweep.
Driving under the influence or drunk driving is defined as having more than 30 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood as detected by a breath analyzer test. The same is true for anyone who is under the influence of a drug to the point where they are unable to maintain proper control of the vehicle, a report by India Filings said.
Driving under the influence is currently a criminal offence in India under Section 185 of The Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. Previously, according to the Motor Vehicle Act, driving while intoxicated or under the influence of drugs was punishable for the first offence by imprisonment for up to six months and/or a fine of up to two thousand rupees. If committed within three years of a similar offence, a second or subsequent offence was punishable by imprisonment for up to two years and/or a fine of three thousand rupees.
However, under amendments to the Act passed in 2019, the same amount was increased (for first-Time Offence) to Rs.10,000 and/or Imprisonment of up to 6 months, and for the second-time offence to Rs 15,000 or Imprisonment of up to 2 years.
What About Their Enforcement?
According to the 2017 WHO Global Health Estimates, road accidents are one of the 12 leading causes of death in India, the ninth leading cause of premature deaths, and the tenth leading cause of disability.
A 2019 report in India Spend states that according to data, the two most common causes of road deaths are speeding and drunk driving, followed by a lack of lane discipline (driving on the wrong side), jumping red lights, and using a mobile phone while driving.
Making a case for stricter enforcement of these laws, the report states that the alcohol limit in many other countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, is 0.08 mg/l, which is higher than the 0.05 mg/l in India, Patanjali Nayyar, an expert, told India Spend. “Many countries’ alcohol-related crashes have been reduced as a result of law enforcement and education,” they said.
According to the Global Road Safety Report 2018, India’s enforcement of speeding and drink-driving laws is rated 3 and 4 out of 10, respectively, compared to 8 and 9 in China and 9 (for both) in Sri Lanka.
The report cites data from the Bureau of Police Research and Development, adding that 30% of 85,144 traffic policemen positions and 39% of 58,509 sanctioned traffic constable positions in India were vacant in 2018.
According to Tewari of the Save a Life Foundation, law enforcement can reduce drink driving. He cited the example of Satyendra Garg, who was the joint commissioner of traffic in New Delhi in 2012 and would conduct random ‘anti-drink and drive drives’ almost every day. People stopped drinking and driving because they were afraid of these checks, Tewari told the publication.
Other Things That Can be Done
According to Tewari, many roads lack traffic-calming features such as speed humps before intersections and median barriers.
Roads should be built not only for four-wheelers but also for two-wheelers and pedestrians, and towns should be designed not only for motorways and commercial areas but also for hawkers and vendors, according to Nayyar. For example, safer highways should be built by incorporating underpasses for pedestrians, particularly those who are vulnerable, such as pregnant women and the elderly.
Nayyar gave the example of the Delhi-Agra highway, which divides villages but has no pedestrian crossings. “How do we expect people whose village has been divided by that highway to crossover to their fields everyday? There are some villages along this stretch of highway that are villages of widows as a result of road accidents,” Nayyar explained.
The report also stated that MORTH data showed that in 2018, 26% of all road accidents involved drivers who did not have a valid licence or were driving with a learner’s licence.
For example, if we go out and ask drivers about the three-second rule (which ensures a safe speed and distance between two vehicles) or whether they are aware of a blindspot in their vehicle while driving, 99% will not know because they have not received any formal training, according to Tewari.
“Drivers require hard skills training in driving, not just advertisements and awareness,” he told India Spend.
He called for implementing the four E’s: engineering, enforcement, education, and emergency response.
The lack of good data is also a concern, the report said. According to the WHO’s 2018 Global Road Safety report, India had approximately 300,000 road deaths in 2016, nearly double the government estimate of 151,000 deaths, highlighting the lack of quality road accident data.
“The data is highly fragmented… The crash investigation report is the most difficult data collection challenge in road accidents. When a collision occurs, little is done to determine the cause of the collision. According to Piyush Tewari, founder of the Save a Life Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to road safety, an attempt is being made to shift responsibility to the driver of the larger vehicle.
Data show that in states where alcohol is prohibited, such as Bihar, Nagaland, and Gujarat, there has been a decrease in accidents caused by drunk driving.
“My impression is that the more you prohibit something, the more likely it is that people will do it,” Tewari said. However, because not all states have a good data management system, they may be underreporting accidents or not managing data effectively, he explained.
“The state of Kerala has banned alcohol, but it also has an excellent data collection system,” Tewari explained. The number of drunk driving accidents in Kerala increased from 35 in 2014 to 133 in 2017. Between 2014 and 2017, alcohol was prohibited in the state.
What About Prosecution After an Incident Has Occurred?
A parliamentary panel in 2017 recommended that drunk drivers who cause death be tried for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and that an accident caused by drunk driving be treated as a planned crime rather than an act of “negligence,” as is currently the case.
Currently, in most cases where drink driving causes death, the accused is charged under Section 304 A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), which is punishable by a two-year prison sentence, a fine, or both.
To crack down on drunk drivers, the committee had recommended that the government amend the relevant laws to “include deaths due to drunken driving as culpable homicide not amounting to murder,” as defined by Section 304 of the IPC. Section 304 offences are non-bailable and punishable by a 10-year prison sentence or life imprisonment.
The panel had also stated that drunk driving accidents should not be “construed as an act of negligence,” but rather as a “premeditated commission of a crime,” and that the drunk driver should be punished under relevant provisions of the IPC depending on the consequences of the accident.
In the current Sultanpuri case, The accused have been booked on charges of culpable homicide (Section 304) not amounting to murder, causing death by negligence and criminal conspiracy, according to the police.
General exceptions, i.e. Chapter IV of the IPC, cover intoxication, the report states. A person is generally exempt from criminal liability for specific reasons such as intoxication, insanity, consent, and so on.
The accused bears the burden of proving the point of exception. Normally, the prosecution bears the burden of proof in order to convict the accused of a criminal offence. However, in this case, the accused must demonstrate why he should be exempt from criminal liability.
This is based on the idea that an innocent man should not be held accountable for an offence that is only guilty if proven. Sections 85 and 86 are concerned with the general exception of intoxication. Read more about this here
Coming back to Karunakaran, she had argued that police must charge such crimes under Section 300. To prove murder, the accused’s actions and intentions must be evaluated under the law. While the action is easily established in this case, the accused must have intended to murder.
Under the IPC, she said, one of the definitions is, “if the person committing the act knows that it is so imminently dangerous that it must, in all probability, cause death, or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death, and commits such act without any excuse for incurring the risk of causing death or such injury.”
The IPC elaborates with an example, stating that if “‘A’ fires a loaded cannon into a crowd of people and kills one of them. A is guilty of murder, even though he may not have intended to kill anyone in particular.”
In other words, if a person commits an act that is so extreme that it can cause severe harm to others, he does not need to have planned his death. “Thus, when an adult of reasonable intellect and knowledge, drives his car under the influence of alcohol at excessive speed, his actions are equivalent to that of a man shooting a loaded cannon into a crowd. Their actions here, are in all probability going to kill another man, even if through their actions they never planned to do so,” she argued.
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