The Sampadak Express News Desk
The High Court of Karnataka has refused to drop a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against a Mysuru man after his 14-year-old son allegedly drove the family car and caused a 2020 crash that killed three members of a family. Justice M. Nagaprasanna held that whether the father’s “conscious entrustment” of the vehicle to a minor amounted to the knowledge required for Section 304 Part II of the Indian Penal Code should be tested at trial rather than at the stage of discharge.
The decision, reported by The Hindu, came on a petition by Nadeem of Mysuru seeking to quash the charge under Section 304 Part II, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment. He did not challenge other connected offences carrying lesser punishments.
“The message of the law must equally be unambiguous. A parent who knowingly places the steering wheel in the hands of a child cannot always retreat behind the minority of that child, when the adventure ends in catastrophe. Parenthood carries not merely affection and authority, but responsibility. Roads are shared public spaces, not training grounds for unlawful indulgence,” the court observed.
The incident occurred on December 10, 2020, when the petitioner’s minor son allegedly took a car for a drive. The vehicle, said to have been driven at speed and negligently, lost control, struck a road divider and collided with a motorcycle. A couple and their five-year-old child died, while another child sustained injuries.
Police initially registered a case of rash and negligent driving. After investigation, they invoked culpable homicide not amounting to murder against the father. Nadeem argued that his son had taken the car without his knowledge or consent and that the material, at most, supported negligence, not the knowledge of likely fatal consequences required for Section 304 Part II.
The court noted, however, that charge sheet material indicated the petitioner habitually allowed his son to drive and had handed over the car keys to him on the day of the crash. While the petitioner was not driving, the alleged act of “consciously entrusting” a vehicle to a legally incompetent child was a positive act that could, prima facie, attract the requisite knowledge, the order stated. “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 upon a public road, the question whether such conduct carries with it the requisite knowledge of likely fatal consequences cannot be foreclosed at the threshold stage of trial,” the court said.
Justice Nagaprasanna also recorded that Karnataka saw 751 accidents involving minors during 2025–26, adding that the rising incidence warranted judicial caution before terminating prosecutions at the outset where a charge sheet, on its face, indicates conscious entrustment of a vehicle to a minor.
With the petition dismissed, the case will proceed to trial to determine whether the alleged entrustment by the father amounts to culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304 Part II of the IPC.
