Question:medium

Principle: Death caused by rash or negligent act of a person is an offence.
Facts: X was driving his SUV car in a lonely road leading to a forest at 160 km per hour. Suddenly, someone appears from the forest on the road and in the resultant accident, the car hits the commuter causing his death.
This question consists of legal principle(s) (hereinafter referred to as ‘principle‘) and facts. Such proposition may or may not be true in the real and legal sense, yet you have to conclusively assume them to be true for the purposes of this section. Principles have to be applied to the given facts to arrive at the most reasonable conclusion. Only one of the alternatives, i.e., (A), (B), (C), or (D) is the most reasonable conclusion. In other words, in answering the following questions, you must not rely on any principle except the principles that are given herein below for every question. Further you must not assume any facts other than those stated in the question. The objective of this section is to test your ability in legal aptitude, study of law, research aptitude and problem solving ability even if the ’most reasonable conclusion‘ arrived at may be absurd or unacceptable for any other reason.

Updated On: Jul 15, 2026
  • X is not guilty of an offence as the accident has occurred on a lonely road
  • X is not guilty because there was no intention to kill the deceased
  • X is guilty of an offence death by rash or negligent act
  • X is not guilty because he was also injured in the accident
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The Correct Option is C

Approach Solution - 1

The principle keys entirely on one thing, whether the act that caused death was rash or negligent, and it does not ask about intention, location, or what else happened to the person who caused the death. That framing narrows the analysis considerably.

Driving an SUV at 160 kilometres per hour on any road is an extreme, uncontrolled speed, and doing so on a road leading into a forest, where a person could plausibly step out, makes the risk foreseeable rather than freakish. That combination of extreme speed and foreseeable risk is what rashness means under the principle, and it is present here independent of whether X meant any harm.

The road being lonely, X lacking any intent to kill, and X himself being injured are all facts about the surrounding circumstances or the aftermath, none of them touch the actual question of whether the manner of driving was rash. Once the rash driving is established as the cause of death, the principle's offence is made out.

So the correct answer is X is guilty of an offence death by rash or negligent act.

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Approach Solution -2

Checking what fact would need to change for each option to be correct clarifies things quickly.

  1. X is not guilty of an offence as the accident has occurred on a lonely road: This would only matter if the principle cared about location, but it is built entirely around the manner of the act, and the loneliness of the road does not reduce the recklessness of driving at 160 kilometres per hour there.
  2. X is not guilty because there was no intention to kill the deceased: This would only work if the principle required intent, but it is expressly about rashness or negligence, a standard that does not depend on what X meant to happen.
  3. X is guilty of an offence death by rash or negligent act: No change is needed, driving at that extreme speed on a road where a person could plausibly appear is already the rash conduct the principle addresses, and it already caused a death.
  4. X is not guilty because he was also injured in the accident: This would only matter if the principle asked about the driver's own injuries, but it asks only about the nature of the act that caused someone else's death, which X's own injuries do not touch.

Since the extreme speed and foreseeable risk already establish rashness on their own, and none of the three alternative conditions actually appear in the principle, the option finding X guilty is the one that fits without needing any unstated fact.

Therefore, the correct answer is X is guilty of an offence death by rash or negligent act.

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