S R BHAT Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) "to be or not to be", that is the question or in other words, where the circumstances seriously endanger safety, whether it is the fundamental duty of the State to take all necessary steps to save and protect life is the basic issue involved in this litigation. The subsidiary question is as to whether the State can permit citizens to expose themselves to grave danger that may jeopardise life and limb or whether, it is the function of the law to prevent such reckless exposure; to which the answer is that attempted suicide is a criminal offence. In the context of the second aspect of the matter what this Court needs to also examine is the consequential situation that arises wherein public resources are involved at the post-disaster stage and whether the exposure to risk in such instances must necessarily be minimised. The answer to the last question involves an examination of the issue as to whether a class of citizens who insist on flying in the face of providence by contending that they should not be forced to wear helmets even when globally accepted security regulations insist upon this, and are the victims of recurrent road tragedies, can be allowed to strain the State's already overburdened medical facilities and public resources because of self-negligence, have a right to insist that such suicidal tendencies must be permitted.

(2.) THE approximate figures put forward in the State of Karnataka between the period February 1995 when the compulsory helmet rule was suspended and July 1997, indicate that the financial burden in this small category of cases wherein the loss of life or injury to the head could have been avoided or considerably minimised had a helmet been worn, aggregates to Rs. 7. 8 crores in this State in terms of medical facilities and services alone. I need to clarify that some of the two wheeler accidents were so grave that the helmet could have made no difference, but I am here referring only to this restricted class of cases where the driver and pillion rider of a motorised two wheeler have unnecessarily lost their lives, gone into coma or been otherwise seriously injured due to head injury, which could have been prevented or considerably minimised due to the use of a helmet. The available medical facilities are hopelessly overworked be they private or public, and there can be no two opinions about the fact that these are badly needed for the more deserving genuine medical ailment cases and that therefore, no citizen can be permitted to recklessly insist on taking risks of getting injured and contributing to unnecessary diversion of these limited facilities. Again, what cannot be lost sight of is the fact that in the ultimate analysis, compensation claims aggregating to Rs. 13. 68 Crores have been preferred in this class of cases in Karnataka alone and it is the nationalised Insurance Companies that have to ultimately meet these claims out of the public exchequer. Lastly, what needs to be also emphasised is that the opposite party involved in the accident is required to be subjected to protracted legal proceedings and liabilities because the sympathy is always with the dead or the injured irrespective of who was at fault. These are serious issues which point to only one conclusion namely that even if a citizen or a group of citizens for reasons of convenience or carelessness insist on throwing safety to the winds, that the State just cannot permit them to do so. The answer to the 3rd question therefore is an emphatic no.

(3.) THE parent statute namely the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 prescribes by virtue of S. 129 for certain protection in relation to persons travelling on motorised two wheelers. The section reads as follows :-S. 129.