A father accused of letting his 14-year-old son drive will have to face the charge: the Karnataka High Court refuses to quash culpable homicide charge against him, and says what he knew is a matter for the trial court.
Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has declined to quash the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (Section 304 Part II of the Indian Penal Code) against a Mysuru man accused of letting his 14-year-old son drive the family car in a December 2020 crash on the Mysuru-Bengaluru road, in which three members of a family died. The Court was clear that it has not decided the father’s guilt and that the question of knowledge is for the trial court [Nadeem Ur Rehman v. State of Karnataka and Another].
Justice M Nagaprasanna dismissed Criminal Petition No. 10711 of 2026 in an order pronounced on October 16, 2026, after reserving it on August 19. Advocate Pallava R appeared for the petitioner, and State Public Prosecutor B N Jagadeesha, assisted by High Court Government Pleader Rashmi Patel, for the State.
From a road crash to a discharge plea
Crime No. 89 of 2020 was registered at the Narasimharaja Traffic Police Station, Mysuru, on a complaint by a relative of the deceased. On December 10, 2020, the car, a company vehicle entrusted to the petitioner by his employer, hit a two-wheeler, killing three persons and injuring another. The FIR invoked Sections 279, 304A and 337 of the IPC and Sections 134(a), 134(b) and 187 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. During the investigation, the Sessions Judge allowed police to add Section 304 Part II, and the charge sheet named the petitioner as accused no. 2, along with Sections 5(1), 180 and 199A of the Motor Vehicles Act.
The II Additional District and Sessions Judge, Mysuru, rejected his application for discharge in S.C. No. 270 of 2021. He then approached the High Court under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, limiting his challenge to the Section 304 Part II charge and not pressing the Motor Vehicles Act offences. The son, a juvenile in conflict with law at the time, is being dealt with separately and is not named here.
What each side argued
For the petitioner, it was argued that the minor took the car without his knowledge or consent, and that even if the prosecution material were accepted in full, the knowledge that death was likely, which Section 304 Part II requires, was wholly absent as far as the father was concerned. At the highest, counsel said, the material pointed to rashness or negligence, and tragic consequences could not turn negligence into culpable homicide.
The State Public Prosecutor pointed to charge sheet material which, according to the prosecution, shows that the petitioner himself handed over the keys to his 14-year-old son and let him take the vehicle. A parent who knowingly puts a vehicle in the hands of a child legally incompetent to drive, it was contended, cannot wash his hands of the consequences. These are allegations in the charge sheet, and the petitioner denies them.
The line between negligence and knowledge
The Court began with the dividing line between the two provisions. Section 304A deals with rashness and negligence, whereas Section 304 Part II applies when an act is done with the knowledge that death is a likely consequence. Drawing on Supreme Court decisions that include Alister Anthony Pareira v. State of Maharashtra, Shantibhai J. Vaghela v. State of Gujarat and State v. Sanjeev Nanda, as well as a Delhi High Court ruling in Master M v. State (NCT of Delhi), it held that a consequence by itself cannot convert negligence into culpable homicide, and that the knowledge must be attributable to the person sought to be held liable.
The petitioner was not at the wheel, the Court observed, and what a driver knew could not be passed on to the father merely because of the relationship.
Yet he could not be discharged on the bare claim that the child took the car without his knowledge, the Court added. Statements in the charge sheet material, it noted, say that he handed over the keys and that this had allegedly happened on earlier occasions too:
“Whether those statements are ultimately worthy of acceptance is a matter of evidence; at the stage of discharge, they cannot be wished away by accepting the defence version as established fact.”
The count of the dead did not decide the matter either way. In the Court’s words, “criminal culpability cannot be measured by counting the dead”. The point that counted was that the prosecution case went beyond the consequence and alleged a conscious, positive act: repeated permission for the boy to drive and, on the day, the handing over of the keys. Whether that lifts the case from gross negligence into culpable homicide must wait for the evidence, the Court said, and a discharge proceeding cannot be turned into a miniature trial.
Responsibility that comes with parenthood
Parenthood, the Court said, “carries not merely affection and authority, but responsibility”, and it put the point in strong terms:
“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.”
Public data cited at the close showed that Karnataka recorded 751 accidents involving minors in 2025-26 out of an all-India figure of 11,890, placing the State sixth in the country. Statistics cannot supply an ingredient of an offence, the Court said, and societal concern cannot take the place of proof of culpability, although courts cannot ignore the social setting in which such offences occur.
The ruling is a limited one, the Court stressed. It does not make every parent whose minor child causes an accident liable under Section 304 Part II, because criminal culpability depends on the facts of each case and on the existence of the statutory ingredients.
The trial goes on
The petition stands rejected, and the Court directed that its observations are confined to the plea for discharge. The trial court must proceed uninfluenced by anything said in the order and decide the petitioner’s culpability independently, on the evidence and in accordance with law. The allegations remain untested, the High Court has expressed no view on the merits, and the presumption of innocence applies to the petitioner.
The order shows how courts keep negligence apart from knowledge when a parent is blamed for a minor’s driving. A bare lapse in supervision will not ordinarily be enough, but where the prosecution alleges a positive act of entrustment, repeated permission and awareness of the risk, the graver charge can go to trial.
For parents, guardians and employers whose vehicles are within a child’s reach, the ruling is a reminder that the bar on minors driving carries criminal consequences that may extend beyond the Motor Vehicles Act, although the final answer will depend on the evidence led before the Mysuru trial court.
Case Title: Nadeem Ur Rehman v. State of Karnataka and Another [Criminal Petition No. 10711 of 2026]
Bench: Justice M Nagaprasanna, Karnataka High Court
Date of Order: October 16, 2026
Appearances: Advocate Pallava R for the petitioner; State Public Prosecutor B N Jagadeesha, assisted by HCGP Rashmi Patel, for the State
FOLLOW US FOR MORE LEGAL UPDATES ON YOUTUBE
For help or to report any offence involving a child, CHILDLINE 1098 is available 24 hours a day.