Hit and Run Cases have become fairly common in India. Mostly, it deals with cases where a person had been killed in the road accident and the culprit escapes from the scene of accident without reporting the matter to police or even to check the health condition of the other person.

In the current Indian Penal Code of 1980 Section 304-A provides the punishment for such cases which was upto 2 Year of imprisonment or fine or both.

However, with the growing menace of HIT and RUN cases and also where by some criminals using car as a weapon to kill someone and showing it as a HIT and RUN case to attract minimum punishment it was though fit by the new bill which is THE BHARATIYA NYAYA SANHITA, 2023 the punishment for the same is now given under Section 104 which is

104. (1) Whoever causes the death of any person by doing any rash or negligent act
not amounting to culpable homicide, shall be punished with imprisonment of either descriptionfor a term which may extend to seven years, and shall also be liable to fine.
(2) Whoever causes death of any person by doing any rash or negligent act not
amounting to culpable homicide and escapes from the scene of incident or fails to report the incident to a Police officer or Magistrate soon after the incident, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description of a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine.

Hence, a rash or negligent driving causes an accident and you stop and report the accident then your punishment is upto 7 Years. However, if you do not report the accident and escape the scene your punishment is upto 10 Years. Which is considerably HIGH.

Further, previously such offence was a Bailable offence. However, under the new Criminal Procedure Code which has been renamed asbharatiya nagarik suraksha sanhita, 2023 – The Offence is now NON-BAILABLE offence.