This is the traffic matter that most often turns out worse than the client expected, because the fine is the smallest part of it. Three consequences run in parallel: the prosecution, the licence, and the record.
The offence and the punishment
Section 185 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 catches a person who, while driving or attempting to drive a motor vehicle, has in his blood alcohol exceeding 30 mg per 100 ml, detected in a test by a breath analyser or in any other test including a laboratory test, or is under the influence of a drug to such an extent as to be incapable of exercising proper control over the vehicle. A first offence is punishable with imprisonment which may extend to six months, or with a fine of ten thousand rupees, or with both. A second or subsequent offence is punishable with imprisonment which may extend to two years, or with a fine of fifteen thousand rupees, or with both.
Two features of the current drafting are commonly misreported. Those fines are fixed figures in the section, not ceilings. And the words that once limited the enhanced punishment to a repeat committed within three years of the previous offence are no longer there, so a second offence attracts the higher punishment whenever it occurs. The alcohol limb is a purely numerical test, and the phrase covering an attempt to drive means a person in the driver's seat with the engine running is within the section even if the car has not moved.
Section 185 does not appear in the list of compoundable offences in Section 200, so no officer has the power to compound it at the roadside and no amount closes it. Because it is not compoundable, the proviso to Section 19(5) of the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 also keeps it out of a Lok Adalat, which has no jurisdiction over a matter relating to an offence not compoundable under any law. Anyone offering to settle it is offering something the law does not permit.
The two hours after an arrest
Section 202(1) allows a police officer in uniform to arrest without warrant a person who commits an offence under Section 184, 185 or 197 in his presence. The proviso attached to it matters a great deal in practice: a person so arrested in connection with an offence punishable under Section 185 shall, within two hours of his arrest, be subjected to the medical examination referred to in Sections 203 and 204 by a registered medical practitioner, failing which he shall be released from custody. That is an express statutory consequence, not a discretionary one. Note the time of your arrest and the time you were produced before a doctor, because where the arrest memo, the hospital record and the medical examination report do not line up within two hours, the point is available on the prosecution's own documents.
What happens to the licence, on two separate tracks
- The administrative track starts before any conviction. Section 206(4) requires an officer who has reason to believe the driver has committed an offence under one of eight named sections, Section 185 among them, to seize the driving licence and forward it to the licensing authority for disqualification or revocation proceedings under Section 19. Section 19(1A) then allows that authority, after giving the holder an opportunity of being heard, either to discharge him or to disqualify him for three months for a first offence, or to revoke the licence for a second or subsequent offence. The acknowledgement given for a licence seized under Section 206(4) does not authorise you to drive.
- The judicial track follows conviction. Section 20(2) removes the court's discretion: where a person is convicted under Section 185 the court shall order disqualification, and it shall be for a period of not less than six months. On a second conviction under the same section, Section 22(2) requires the court to cancel the licence by order.
What to do
- Write down the timeline on the day. Time of the stop, the officer's name and rank, the device reading and its make, the time of arrest, and the time you were seen by a doctor.
- Get a receipt for anything seized, and read what the acknowledgement says about whether you may drive.
- Answer the licensing authority notice. That proceeding is separate from the criminal case, it runs on its own timeline, and the right to be heard is lost if the notice is ignored. Winning the criminal case later does not undo an order passed unopposed.
- Do not plead guilty to clear the file. The six month disqualification is automatic on conviction, and a plea entered to save a day in court costs six months of driving. The wider picture is in our guide on drunk driving penalties and licence suspension.
Two collateral consequences deserve a mention because clients rarely ask until it is too late. Motor policies ordinarily exclude cover where the driver was under the influence of intoxicating liquor or drugs, so an own damage claim is likely to be resisted, and the general position on repudiated claims is set out in our note on insurance claim repudiation. And a conviction here is a criminal conviction: it surfaces in police verification and is disclosable on visa and employment forms that ask about convictions. If a challan was also generated out of the same stop, that is a separate entry, and the mechanics are in our note on disputing an e-challan in Bengaluru.