The national government seems to have woken up to the need of making laws against rash driving stricter in a bid to curb the number of accidents involving automobiles in the country. The Home Minister of India, P. Chidambaram, has requested the state governments to assess the possibility of raising penalties by a significant margin or increasing prison sentences in this matter. He has also forwarded a proposal to enhance the sentence for motorists who end up killing people due to their negligent driving.
While addressing the Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State in Home Ministry, Mulappally Ramachandran, said, "Since criminal law and criminal procedure are in the Concurrent List in the 7th Schedule of the Constitution, the law commission report has been referred to the state government and Union Territory administrations for their views."
A total of three actions have been proposed by the Home Ministry, including increasing the maximum prison sentence from the current 2 years to 10 years under section 304A of the Indian Penal Code. Secondly, the offense would become non-bailable and the accused would have to go the court in order to get bail. As of now, it is a bailable offense and the police has the authority to grant bail. Lastly, the government has proposed that an inebriated driver would be liable for a minimum prison sentence of two years, whereas no minimum sentence is defined presently.
The spate of accidents involving automobiles in the New Delhi as well as National Capital Region (NCR) brought the severity of the issue to the government’s notice. A recent incident was the death of a pregnant woman and her driver by the hands of a youngster driving a BMW at high speed. The driver in this incident, Suraj Sherawat, evaded arrest for some time before surrendering in front of the court and then leaving immediately on bail. Even if the driver is convicted under state laws, he would only spend a maximum of two years in prison.
This underscores the need of stricter laws, since drivers remain unconcerned by the loss of lives due to their actions primarily because of lax rules. India holds the dubious distinction of being the country with the maximum number of deaths in road accidents across the globe, even though the figures have decreased over the last three years. A major reason for the high number of deaths in the country is said to be the meagre penalty levied on the accused in comparison to the damages they cause.
