Intoxicated by power and pelf, Natasha Iqbal CEO of two companies and managing director of seven other business entities ran her luxurious SUV over five poor people ruthlessly including father and daughter who succumbed to death on the spot near Karzar Karachi.
This horrific incident went viral on social media with the debate that the lady was on the booze while driving as a consequence where she crushed five people. The more interesting part of the story surfaced when the lady’s lawyer took the plea of insanity to defend her.
According to the lady’s counsel, she has been suffering from psychosis and has been on medication for the last five years. People were taken aback by how a lady who spearheads seven big business entities can be a lunatic. However, now people’s eyes are fixed on the criminal justice system of our country as they want this heartless lady to be penalized as harshly as possible for the act that she did out of sheer negligence and empathy.
Criminal investigation in our country starts with the registration of FIR. The sections applied therein not only decide the fate of bail application but also help prognosticate the outcome of the trial. Given the FIR of the incident, it can safely be concluded that the lady is not going to undergo any harsh punishment because the sections applied in the FIR, all are bail-able, which suggests that she will be released on bail without much ado and so far as trial is considered, it will also culminate into compounding of offence.
Unfortunately, the law of negligent and rash driving in our country does not provide harsh penalties. The provisions of PPC which come into play in such cases are 320, 322, 279, and 337 G which are bailable as well as compoundable. Resultantly, the committers of offence do not get bail without taking any pains in such cases but also go scot-free.
Inter alia, there is a yawning difference between medical insanity and legal insanity.
Section 320 provides “whoever commits Qatl-e Khata by rash or negligent driving shall, having regard to the facts and circumstances of the case, in addition to diyat, be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and in section 322 the only punishment provided is Diyat whereas section 279 provides ”whoever drives any vehicle, or rides, on any public way in a manner so rash as to endanger human life, or to be likely to cause hurt or injury to any other person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to two years or with fine which may extend to three thousand rupees or with both. Additionally, 337-G calls for Arsh or Daman specified for the kind of hurt caused coupled with imprisonment which may extend to five years.
Here, the question arises as to why the laws about rash or negligent driving are so lax in our country. The rationale behind such lenient enactment is that in such offences one main constituent of offence is missing. Two main ingredients that constitute offence are mens rea and actus reus; mens rea refers to criminal intent or guilty state of mind whereas actus reus means putting thought (criminal intent) into action. In cases of rash or negligent driving, the accused is not predetermined to commit the offence, it happens out of the blue only due to the utter negligence of a driver; this lack of premeditation on the part of the accused has, perhaps, caused lawmakers to adopt a lenient view while legislating on this offence.
Coming to the latest incident of Karsaz, people are demanding that the perpetrator of the incident be given as severe punishment as possible. Some people, who may be out of fury, are adamant that the accused lady be charged under 302 PPC and be sentenced to death. However, the law will take its defined course since it is bound to trade on the given path and does not transgress the limits and operate with utter disregard to wishes and the whims of the people.
Regarding the incident, some people are into polemics that the police have not applied proper sections in the FIR. Section 322 and not 320 should have been applied; to them, section 322 is non-bailable, hence, the accused will not get bail. They don’t know that if any offence is not bail-able it doesn’t mean that the accused will not get bail but the accused in such cases cannot claim bail as a matter of right; it is up to the discretion of the court after hearing the counsel of the accused to decide whether the accused be released on bail or not.
In my humble opinion, section 320 is more severe than section 322 because the former provides not only for Diyat but also for ten year imprisonment whereas in section 322, only Diyat is provided and no imprisonment. It becomes non-bailable when the accused declines to pay Diyat and as a consequence whereof is incarcerated. Furthermore, it is pertinent to mention here that the line drawn by the contemporary jurists vis-a-vis when to charge the accused under section 320 and when under section 322 is that if the accused holds a valid driving license, section 320 will be attracted, charged for Qatl-e Khata by rash or negligent driving and if vice versa, 322 for Qatl-e Bisabab. The case under question falls under the ambit of 320 as the lady holds the driving license of UK.
So far as the plea of insanity as taken by the defence counsel is concerned, it doesn’t seem to be surviving in the court since the lady calls the shots in one of the biggest business groups of Pakistan named Gul Ahmed and the people presiding over the courts are not so naïve that they can’t understand such gimmicks and artifice of lawyers. Inter alia, there is a yawning difference between medical insanity and legal insanity. The former may be easy to establish but later warrants cogent and irrefutable arguments in the court of law. However, for a transitory period, the plea of insanity may benefit the accused because in such cases the trial is halted and firstly the question of unsoundness of the mind of the accused is addressed, a medical board is constituted and meanwhile, the accused is released on the bail under section 466 of crpc.
To cap it all, the laws about rash and negligent driving should be made more harsh not in a retributive sense but in a sense of deterrence so that people might take extraordinary caution while driving on the road.
The writer is an advocate and a columnist based in Quetta.