Road accidents that amount to murder in the eyes of law

Deaths by road accidents have, unfortunately, become a casual thing in Bangladesh these days. Particularly in Dhaka, due to the fact that most bus drivers here are forced to work on a commission basis, negligently overtaking has apparently became an excusable action to them in order to make a decent earning, even when it results in someone�s death.
 
Against the protests and demands of these chauffers, who are the self-proclaimed victims of this commission based system, after multiple attempts of amendments, the law makers have finally managed to settle for an imprisonment of five years with or without a fine of five lac taka only by virtue of s.105 of the Road Transport Act 2018 in the name of maximum available punishment for killing by reckless driving.

In theory, however, a deliberate act of causing death by rush driving is still supposed to attract liabilities for murder under s.302 of the Penal Code 1860 (PC1860) if the driver had acted in such manner which he knew would result in causing someone�s death in all probabilities. The reality, however, is not always a perfect reflection of such theories.

On 29th July 2018, two of the Shaheed Ramiz Uddin Cantonment College students, Dia and Rajib, got killed when a Jabal-e-Noor bus decided to race through a crowd of students, ignoring all cautions received from the helper and the passengers after getting its windows shattered due to hitting the flyover wall twice, in his attempt of competing with another bus of the same company for picking up more passengers.

On 3rd April 2018, Government Titumir College student Rajib Hossain got sandwiched between two buses as a result of their sick competition in the middle of a busy road on a working day, and eventually died as a result of sustaining fatal injuries from the incident.

On 2nd December 2022, Rubina Akther got killed after being dragged by a private car through hundreds of yards in an attempt of escaping the scene after hitting a motorbike carrying the victim and her brother-in-law, despite the fact that the person behind the wheels was asked by the surrounding crowds several times to stop the vehicle.

In all these cases, the persons driving those vehicles knew that the way they were driving would result in fatal injuries and still continued to act. Such deliberate actions should have been treated as nothing less than a murder in light of s.302 of the 1860 Act. Unfortunately though, the law enforcing agencies as well as the Judiciary was seen to have observed these facts differently.

In Dia-Rajib�s case The Court held the driver liable for culpable homicide not amounting to murder under s.304 of Penal Code. This meant that they believed that the driver did not see death as the only probable result of his actions despite that he was already asked to several times stop after having the bus windows shattered by hitting the flyover twice before running over the crowd.

Rojib Hossain�s case was even worse since the accused there was charged under s.304B PC1860. The section deals with such an offence of causing death in rush driving which did not even amount to culpable homicide, let alone murder. The maximum available punishment for this is no more than three years of imprisonment with or without fine.

Rajib�s family filed a no-confidence petition hoping that the Court would at least consider a charge for committing culpable homicide under s.304, if not a murder. This was the case even though it was almost impossible to rule out the possibility of the driver having knowledge that sandwiching a man between two running buses by racing on a working day would result in causing death of someone in all probabilities.

In  Rubina�s case, even if hitting her was initially a mere accident, the refusal of the expelled associate professor of DU  to stop, despite being told to do so by the surrounding crowd so many times, was a deliberate act of leading the victim towards death on purpose in an attempt of escaping the scene.

Fortunately, as per the media report, Police are considering charges of murder in this case but based on pervious history it cannot be said for sure what will be the end result of this investigation since in most cases things get settled for a less punishable offences.

The reason most of these offenders get away with lesser punishments is that s.302 of the Penal Code was not originally designed for treating such special cases and so the wording of the Act has left a loop-hole for the culprit to get away by simply stating that he had no knowledge regarding the probabilities.

The only Statute designed to deal with road traffic incidents in our country is the Road Transport Act 2018. Unfortunately it does not cover a deliberate act of causing death by driving. It merely covers reckless driving attracting maximum five years of imprisonment only; and the way bus drivers keep going on strikes on every attempt of amendments, it seems unlikely to have a more suited Act enacted anytime soon.  

However, in the meantime, the best we can do is to stop generalising all road traffic incidents as same and learn to distinctly identify those which are grave enough to attract higher punishments than a mere imprisonment of five years. The tragic demise of Rajib Hossain and Rubina Akther very clearly pointed that out to us.
The writer is a non-practicing Barrister-at-law, currently working as a legal researcher at A.S & Associates