The Supreme Court has acquitted a Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) bus driver who had been convicted for causing the death of a passenger under Sections 279 and 304A of the Indian Penal Code, ruling that a driver who acts on a conductor’s signals for stopping and restarting a bus cannot automatically be held criminally negligent.
The bench of Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra and Justice N.V. Anjaria observed that criminal negligence cannot be presumed merely because an unfortunate accident occurred and emphasized that culpable negligence requires clear proof of a rash or reckless state of mind.
The judgment was delivered in Mohammad Hanif Jainum Khalifa v. State of Karnataka, where the Court set aside the concurrent findings of the Trial Court, Appellate Court and the Karnataka High Court, holding that all three courts had committed a “manifest error” in convicting the driver.
The case arose from an incident that occurred on April 17, 2011. According to the prosecution, the complainant, along with his sister-in-law Shobha and her mother, was travelling in a KSRTC bus from Athani to their village. As they approached Mallayya Temple, they intended to get down from the bus. It was alleged that after the conductor gave a signal and while passengers were still alighting, the driver moved the bus in a rash and negligent manner, causing Shobha to fall and sustain serious head injuries. She later succumbed to those injuries.
Based on the complaint, an FIR was registered and the driver was prosecuted under Sections 279 and 304A of the IPC along with provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act. The Trial Court convicted him and sentenced him to simple imprisonment of four months under Section 279 and six months under Section 304A IPC. The appellate court affirmed the conviction, while the Karnataka High Court partly modified the sentence by applying the doctrine of merger and removing the separate punishment under Section 279 IPC while retaining the conviction and sentence under Section 304A IPC.
Before the Supreme Court, the evidence of the bus conductor became crucial. The conductor, examined as PW6, stated that after passengers informed him where they intended to alight, he whistled to signal the driver to stop the bus. He further testified that after passengers had got down, he instructed the driver to move the bus again. While the bus was moving, he heard screams and later discovered that a passenger had fallen.
The Supreme Court treated this testimony as decisive. The Court explained that in ordinary bus operations, the conductor controls passenger movement and indicates when the bus should stop and restart. Drivers, whose attention is expected to remain on operating the vehicle safely, naturally depend on these signals rather than physically checking whether each passenger has safely alighted.
The Bench observed that expecting a bus driver to turn around and personally verify whether every passenger had exited safely would be unrealistic and contrary to how public transport functions. It held that since the driver merely acted according to the conductor’s instructions, attributing negligence to him would be “both unreasonable and illogical.”
The Court also referred extensively to earlier precedents including Ravi Kapur v. State of Rajasthan and State of Karnataka v. Satish while discussing the legal standards governing rashness and negligence. It reiterated that criminal negligence requires something more than a mere error of judgment or occurrence of an accident. There must be evidence of “culpable rashness” or “culpable negligence,” involving a conscious disregard of risk and possible consequences.
According to the Court, in the present case there was no evidence suggesting that the driver acted recklessly or with disregard for safety. On the contrary, the material on record indicated that he was following established operational procedures and acting bona fide on the conductor’s directions. The Court further noted that it was equally possible that the deceased had slipped while getting down from the bus because of her own movement being less than careful.
The Court stressed that rashness and negligence are relative concepts and cannot be presumed merely from the occurrence of an accident. It observed that criminal liability cannot rest upon assumptions but must emerge from surrounding facts and reliable evidence.
Consequently, the Supreme Court set aside the High Court’s order and acquitted the appellant of offences under Sections 279 and 304A IPC. The Court directed that the driver be released immediately if he was not required in connection with any other case.
Case Details
Case Title: Mohammad Hanif Jainum Khalifa Versus The State Of Karnataka
Citation: JURISHOUR-1433-SC-2026
Case No.: Criminal Appeal No.2902 Of 2026
Date: MAY 27, 2026
