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Biman Mukherji

A luxury car crash outside New Delhi that left two pedestrians critically injured has revived public anger in India over what many see as a pattern of legal leniency for wealthy drivers, echoing a similar fatal case last year that sparked national outcry.
Deepak Kumar – a luxury car dealer – was arrested for rash and negligent driving after a Lamborghini he was testing veered out of control and hit two construction workers in Noida, a city bordering the Indian capital, last Sunday.
On Monday, Kumar was allowed out on a bail of 25,000 rupees (US$300), triggering renewed fury online and fresh debate over the country’s uneven justice system.
A widely circulated video of the incident shows Kumar stepping out of the crashed vehicle and asking bystanders in Hindi, “Koi mar gaya kya?” (“Has anyone died?”).
The footage, filmed by a witness, has fuelled accusations of impunity for India’s affluent, especially when crashes involve poor pedestrians or roadside workers.
Gaurav, a bystander who witnessed the crash, told Indian news agency ANI: “The driver could not control the car, hit people and then crashed into the divider.”

The car belonged to 24-year-old social media influencer Mridul Tiwari, who reportedly allowed Kumar to take it for a test drive ahead of a planned sale. Tiwari has millions of social media followers.
The case has drawn sharp comparisons to a similar incident in May last year in the city of Pune where a 17-year-old boy rammed his Porsche car into a motorcycle, killing two people.
The teenager, Vedant Agarwal, was granted bail under conditions that included writing a 300-word essay on road safety and assisting traffic police for 15 days – a decision that was widely condemned as shockingly lenient.
Online, many Indians compared the two crashes. “Pune-like horror in Noida, Uttar Pradesh,” wrote one social media user. “Will Milord also ask him to write an essay?” he asked, referring to the judge.
Another user asked, “How long will poor people continue to die?”
India has among the world’s deadliest roads, accounting for around 10 per cent of global road deaths despite having just 1 per cent of the world’s vehicles, according to the World Bank. Most fatal crashes are attributed to speeding and negligence.
Government data shows speeding alone is responsible for more than half of all traffic-related deaths in the country.
In December, a woman died in the Indian financial capital of Mumbai when a speeding BMW car hit a two-wheeler scooter that she and her husband were riding. That incident occurred only a month after a drunk driver lost control of an Audi and slammed it into several vehicles in Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s largest city.

Experts said the combination of high-performance cars, poor enforcement and low driver skill is proving lethal.
Hormudz Sorabjee, editor of Autocar India, told Mirror Now television that such incidents stemmed from a lack of driving skills because some supercars can reach speeds of 100km/h (62mph) in just seconds.
With cars getting more powerful, “in the wrong hands they can become lethal”, he said.
Pattern of incidents
Others expressed concern that such incidents are happening on the roads time and again because the rich and powerful know that they can get away lightly.
Colin Gonsalves, senior lawyer and founder of Indian non-profit Human Rights Law Network, said that similar incidents often happened, but the interest among the middle class tended to fade away after the initial outrage for the victims, who were generally poor.
“They [culprits] get away because they are rich,” he said. Sometimes the drivers of the vehicles would change places with others to escape the sentence, Gonsalves added.
They get away because they are rich
Colin Gonsalves, founder of Human Rights Law Network
In cases where a person drives intoxicated and crushes people under their car, the crime falls in the category of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Indian laws, which essentially amounts to a charge just short of murder, he said.
Gonsalves said the law ought to be strictly applied to deter such cases. “After all, the person knew the consequences of his … driving at high speed,” he added. “That would put the rich people taking out their cars for a spin in jail for quite some time.”
The common practice of sleeping by the roadside made the poor vulnerable to such acts of rash driving, Gonsalves said. “Only cars change but victims are always poor.”
He said that the law should be strictly applied even to juveniles, noting that the maximum punishment was three years imprisonment even for such culprits.
“I don’t see any change happening except if some judge of the Supreme Court passes an order,” Gonsalves said, adding that sooner or later a judge is likely to pass a strict sentence.


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The car’s driver was released on a bail of US$300 after critically injuring two construction workers, sparking accusations of unequal justice


The car’s driver was released on a bail of US$300 after critically injuring two construction workers, sparking accusations of unequal justice.


Lamborghini

Crime

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Outrage over Lamborghini crash in India reignites debate over privilege and impunity

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The car’s driver was released on a bail of US$300 after critically injuring two construction workers, sparking accusations of unequal justice

The car’s driver was released on a bail of US$300 after critically injuring two construction workers, sparking accusations of unequal justice