Hardlook | Hit and run cases in Gujarat: Rampant rash driving, diminished penalties and more

“When the incident happened, we were not even at the spot as the restaurant closes before midnight and the owner said the next day that we’ll just repair it,” said Mukesh Mondal, manager of Mauve Restaurant which suffered the loss earlier this month.

The state government fast-tracked the Jaguar hit-and-run case. A charge sheet was filed on July 28 before an Ahmedabad magistrate court against Tathya for culpable homicide (not amounting to murder), and his father, Pragnesh Patel, a builder, on charges of criminal intimidation.

The first accident at the site too incidentally involved another black Mahindra Thar.

A 17-member Special Investigation Team headed by Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) NN Chaudhari found that Tathya had a history of rash driving, which had largely gone unreported in the police record. In another incident, Tathya had allegedly rammed into a temple pillar in the Kalol block of Gandhinagar in the early hours of January 1, causing a part of the temple’s roof to collapse. An FIR naming him was filed on July 25

No lessons learned?

On July 24, between 12.05 am and 1.50 am, Kedar Dave, 25, who was driving a Maruti Ciaz allegedly in an inebriated condition, lost control at the steering wheel, and hit a pavement at Ahmedabad’s Maninagar, causing the car to turn turtle.  His three friends — Preet Soni (25), Swaraj Yadav (23), and Rutvik Mandaliya (23) — who were in the car were also allegedly drunk. Police said two beer bottles were found in the car. All were arrested and videos of two of the accused purportedly being flogged by police were widely shared on social media the next day. It was “to set an example”, police told The Indian Express.

On July 26, 26, barely a week after the Jaguar flyover incident, 24-year-old Gunjan Swami was killed after allegedly crashing his car into the compound wall of the Food and Drugs Control Administration (FDCA) building as he descended from the Pandya Bridge in Fatehgunj area of Vadodara.  Swami was booked for rash and negligent driving. His co-passenger Arjun Thakur is still recovering from injuries. Police said that Swami possibly lost control of the overspeeding car.

In another incident, on July 23, a 14-year-old boy — along with two other teens — was caught performing stunts on a moped, on surveillance cameras on the Jilani Bridge over the Tapi River in Surat.  As the moped owner was arrested,  for rash driving and endangering lives and personal safety of others, he told police he had given the two-wheeler to his 14-year-old son for refueling. He secured bail later. The cancellation process for the driving license was underway, police said. The boy was also booked under the Juvenile Justice Act, detained, and later released.

“We checked the CCTV footage and found that the minor was driving a moped in a reckless way… people driving their vehicles near him were scared. A bus was also passing by at the time the video was recorded. This is why strict action has been taken against the man who is also equally responsible for giving the vehicle,” said sub-inspector B S Parmar, Rander Police.

High-profile cases

The Vismay Shah case

The ISKCON flyover incident brought back the haunting memory of a similar case. Ahmedabad-based businessman Vismay Shah, 27, son of a doctor, was convicted for mowing down two youths — Shivan Dave (25) and Rahul Patel (21) — with his speeding BMW, near Lad Society, Vastrapur in Ahmedabad on February 24, 2013.

While some eyewitnesses turned hostile, in 2015, a trial court held him guilty of rash driving, and culpable homicide (not amounting to murder) and sentenced him to five years of imprisonment, directing him to pay Rs 5 lakh as compensation to each victim. Vismay walked out of prison days before the ISKCON bridge accident after completing his five-year sentence.

In 2020, the Gujarat High Court upheld the conviction and while one of the victim’s father had sought enhancement of punishment, he withdrew it on the ground that the family members of the victims and the accused had “amicably settled” the disputes. The families of the victims were compensated with Rs 1.5 crore in immovable property and cash combined.

The High Court, while upholding the conviction, also commented on the state of roads, observing that “the state of Indian roads” cannot be ignored, where not only heavy four-wheeler vehicles such as trucks, and buses travel on the same road as cars, but also motorcyclists, cyclists, and pedestrians, too have no option “but to commute on the same road.”

“We, as the citizens, unfortunately, have very scant respect or regard for human life, which is, since, found in abundance in this country, and have least respect for smaller vehicles or persons going on bicycles or for pedestrians walking on the road. The traffic rules by and large to an average citizen on the T-Junctions, crossroads and otherwise are alien and its observance and implementation is more often in breach,” the order noted.

The HC further ordered payment of Rs 2 lakh to the state to be used to provide compensation to victims of hit-and-run accidents, in cases where the vehicle owners and drivers could not be traced.

In April 2020, the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal against the conviction, which was also upheld by the HC, and Vismay had to surrender to serve his jail time. According to Vismay’s advocate Maunish Pathak, he served around 4 years and 2 months of prison time and has now completed his 5-year sentence, including furlough and parole (counted as part of prison time).

Vadodara

On February 16, 2016, 27-year-old Hirak Navalawala, son of BN Navalawala, adviser to then Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel, died in an accident. He was accused of ramming his sedan into another sedan in Vadodara. Four of his friends– Pratik, Vimal, Vishal, and Vicky — all residents of Delhi, were aboard the other sedan. Three of his four friends sustained grievous injuries, and the Gotri police station registered a case under IPC sections including section 304.

The cars got onto a footpath and crashed into a compound wall before swerving onto the road, where Hirak’s sedan then crashed into another, killing him on the spot, according to the case details.

Outrage in Surat

aIn April 2021, Atul Vekariya, owner of Atul Bakery, a bakery chain across Gujarat and other states, was arrested in Surat. This was after his Ford Endeavour allegedly hit and killed a person identified as Urvashi Chaudhary (29). She was standing near her parked moped on the roadside while waiting for her elder brother Niraj Chaudhary, who was buying snacks. The deceased and her brother worked as clerks at Veer Narmad South Gujarat University. Locals stopped the car being driven by Atul Vekariya and found him “heavily drunk”. A complaint was filed against Vekariya under various IPC sections, including causing hurt by endangering the life or personal safety of others, causing death by negligence, and drunk driving. A public outcry followed. Many came out on the streets, demanding strict action against Vekariya. He is currently out on bail and the trial proceedings are ongoing before a Surat district court.

Observations by Gujarat HC

The HC on July 25 came down heavily on Ahmedabad traffic police and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, observing that while cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, and Pune see strict crackdowns on traffic violators, “perpetrators have no fear of law”  in Ahmedabad as the administration “don’t have guts or spine to enforce the law”. The court further noted that “these accidents will keep on happening (unless) there’s fear of law,” and implored that the police action should be such that “any person/perpetrator before breaking the law must be subconsciously aware that ‘if I do something, I’ll be caught and strictly handled’.”

Diminished penalty

In 2019, when the Union Transport MinIn 2019, when the Union Transport Ministry introduced steep fines for traffic violations under the amended Motor Vehicles Act (MVA), Vijay Rupani, who was Gujarat CM at the time, went in a polar opposite direction, announcing steep cuts in penalties.

Rupani reasoned that his government had no interest in “harassing people” by levying steep fines or “dragging court cases” for years. He, however, added the government took the safety of people as its top priority.

At the time, he also said that his government had deliberately kept the penalty low for offences such as triple-riding or riding pillion without a helmet. “We often see that people in rural areas resort to triple-riding due to a lack of facilities or resources. So we have waived any penalty on triple-riding on three-wheelers and pillion riders sitting without a helmet,” he had said.

A top police official in Ahmedabad, however, concurred that penalty amounts of Rs 500 are hardly a deterrent anymore.

In October last year, when Gujarat was preparing for state elections, a Diwali festival bonanza was announced by Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi — no fines would be imposed for violating traffic rules between October 21 and 27. This was apparently for petty offences such as not wearing helmets or seat belts. However, offenses such as rash driving, and wrong-side driving continued to draw penalties.

Recently, Sanghavi was, however, quoted as saying at an event that police would take action against those performing stunts on roads and their parents. “It is the parents who give bikes or mopeds to their children who don’t have driving licenses. There are many people who have lost their near and dear ones in road accidents due to such stunts,” the minister said.

Knee-jerk reaction or more?

Gujarat DGP Vikas Sahay on July 20 issued statewide instructions for carrying out a month-long drive against rash driving.

While the police crackdown continues, traffic violators as observed in the cities of Ahmedabad, Vadodara, and Surat, continue to ride unabated without helmets or seatbelts, as well as on the wrong side.  These are said to be considered “minor offences”.

On July 25  when the Gujarat HC expressed its displeasure at the traffic police’s lax implementation of laws, the Ahmedabad city police commissioner organised a special drive with barricades and checkpoints near every police station area of the city.

The then in-charge Ahmedabad City Police commissioner Prem Vir Singh said that the police is “formulating an action plan for night deployment of traffic police on a permanent basis in areas where traffic violations and rash driving are rampant.”

A K Vanani, Surat Deputy Commissioner of Police, Traffic Department, said, “Since January, we have been using interceptor vehicles to detect cases of overspeeding, wrong-side vehicle parking, talking on the phone while driving, among others. We have been using speed guns since March and now have 33 of them. These automatically measure the speed of vehicles and capture the registration number plate of over-speeding vehicles. We are top in the state for issuing e-challans generated through speed guns and interceptor vehicles.”

According to DCP Jyoti Patel, the Vadodara Traffic Department issues about 800 daily traffic challans for all offences. “Of the 296 cases booked for a month between June 19-July 20, we also undertook a special one-week drive against two-wheelers because Vadodara city witnessed overspeeding of two-wheelers more than four-wheelers. The team seized 76 high-speed (bullet) motorcycles, some of which were also modified to make loud sounds… The reason for beginning a drive against overspeeding was that the traffic department of the city was granted speed guns only on June 19.”

“Earlier, the Traffic Department only issued e-challans and we could not monitor the speed. But from June 19, we have deployed speed guns. The high-speed motorcycles are mostly driven by youth for fun even though they can be dangerous. Most of these stunts are performed at night when the roads are deserted. We have very rare incidents of overspeeding cars or car races,” Patel added.

(WITH INPUTS FROM ADITI RAJA IN VADODARA, KAMAAL SAIYED IN SURAT)