BENGALURU: In a rare instance, the Karnataka High Court allowed trial against a 51-year-old father from Mysuru, under Section 304 Part II of the IPC (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) for permitting his 14-year-old son to drive a car that crashed into a two-wheeler, claiming three lives, of a couple and their son travelling on Bengaluru-Mysuru Road, and leaving the other son injured.
“Parents and guardians who permit such adventures cannot treat the statutory prohibition (minors from driving) as a matter of convenience, and thereafter seek complete insulation from criminal consequences when the foreseeable peril turns into catastrophe.
The steering wheel of a motor vehicle cannot become a plaything in the hands of a child, nor can a public road become the playground for such indulgence,” observed Justice M Nagaprasanna, rejecting the petition filed by Nadeem ur Rehman, father of the minor boy.
Rehman moved the HC, seeking to quash the chargesheet filed against him as accused No. 2 by NR Traffic Police in Mysuru, for the offence punishable under Section 304 Part II of the IPC in the crime registered on the death of the couple Usha (30) and Ramesh (40) and their son Monish (5) at 10pm on December 10, 2020, near Dandina Maramma temple on Bengaluru-Mysuru Road. Their other son, Siddharth, sustained injuries.
Rehman filed the application before the sessions court to discharge him from the offence, but it was rejected, and therefore, he approached the high court. The petitioner contended that his minor son, without his knowledge or consent, took the car and drove it in a rash and negligent manner, resulting in the fatal accident.
Karnataka saw 751 accidents involving minors in 2025-26, says HC
Merely because the consequences of the accident were tragic, it cannot be elevated to culpable homicide, the petitioner claimed.
State Public Prosecutor BN Jagadeesha, however, submitted that there is material to indicate that the petitioner himself had handed over the keys of the car to his 14-year-old son, and permitted him to take the vehicle for a drive. He repeatedly permitted his son to drive. If the petition is allowed, it would amount to putting a premium upon conduct fraught with foreseeable and potentially fatal consequences, he argued.
The court observed that the petitioner cannot seek discharge merely by asserting that the child clandestinely took away the vehicle. The chargesheet contains statements indicating that the petitioner himself handed over the keys to his minor son and that this was not an isolated occurrence but had allegedly happened on earlier occasions as well.
If a parent consciously places a motor vehicle in the hands of a 14-year-old child, knowing fully well that the child is legally incompetent and manifestly unequipped to drive it on a public road, the question whether such conduct carries with it the requisite knowledge of likely fatal consequences cannot be foreclosed at the threshold, the court added.
The high court stated that statistics in public domain indicate that during 2025-26, Karnataka recorded 751 accidents involving minors, out of an all-India figure of 11,890, placing the state at sixth in the country in this category.
The figures also indicate an over-representation of young drivers between 17 and 23 years of age in serious and fatal road accidents. What is disquieting is that the graph does not appear to be bending downwards; it is travelling in the opposite direction.
The rising incidence of such accidents, therefore, reinforces the need for courts to exercise circumspection before interdicting a prosecution at its threshold, where the chargesheet itself contains material, prima facie, indicating conscious entrustment of the vehicle to a minor, it said.