Ahmedabad: Police in Banaskantha district failed to prove that a private passenger vehicle, which they had intercepted, was carrying three times more passengers than the vehicle’s seating capacity. A criminal trial fell flat with none of the passengers, who testified as witnesses to the overcrowding of the vehicle, identifying the driver or supporting the police case. This resulted in the acquittal of the driver.
According to the case details, in June 2019, Danta police stopped a four-wheeler and charged its driver, Ravatsinh Dabhi, under Section 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) and 279 of IPC (rash driving) and provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act. This was because the cops found 30 people, including the driver, which was much beyond the vehicle’s approved seating capacity. He was also alleged to have been driving rashly and at a high speed, putting the passengers’ lives in danger.
The police complaint stated that there were seven passengers hanging behind the vehicle. There were three adults and three children sitting with the driver in the front seat, five adults and four children in the middle seat, and five adults and two children in the back seat.
When the trial took place against the driver, all the policemen supported the prosecution’s case. However, the seven male passengers who were examined as witnesses before the court turned hostile. The driver defended himself by claiming that he was driving an empty vehicle, but when he was stopped, there was an altercation with the policemen, and therefore he was wrongly booked.
After the hearing, principal district judge at Palanpur, Shubhada Baxi, concluded that the cops could not prove Dabhi was driving the vehicle. When this fact was not established, that Dabhi was carrying 29 passengers and driving the vehicle in a rash and negligent manner, there was no question that he had knowledge that driving the vehicle would endanger people’s lives.
The court ordered the return of the vehicle to its owner after nearly six years of its seizure.