Pay challan or lose vehicle: Supreme Court orders seizure for unpaid fines

New Delhi (The Uttam Hindu): The Supreme Court has taken a tough stand against careless drivers who do not pay the challan after violating traffic rules and has given a big decision. The top court has clearly directed that if any driver does not pay the challan despite being challaned repeatedly, then the police and the transport department will have full authority to directly seize such vehicles. Expressing serious concern over the huge challan amount of more than ₹ 23,000 crores pending across the country, the court said that the problem cannot be solved by merely issuing digital e-challans, for this it is necessary to implement a strict recovery mechanism at the ground level.

Challans worth ₹23,000 crore pending across the country, court expresses deep concern

During the hearing of the case 'S. Rajsikaran vs. Union of India', the Supreme Court had summoned detailed data from the Central Government on pending e-challans across the country. According to the data presented by the Central Government, e-challans worth a total of ₹49,000 crore were issued across the country. Of these, approximately ₹26,000 crore have been recovered so far, while a huge amount of ₹23,000 crore is still outstanding from vehicle owners. On this, the court sternly said that the states will now have to adopt strict confiscation measures to ensure recovery.

There will be random checks on the roads, vehicles of those who repeatedly break the rules will be seized

The court has ordered the police of all states and union territories to conduct random checking of vehicles running on the roads. Under this system, vehicles on which more than one e-challan is pending and the fine has not been paid for a long time, will be immediately seized by the police during checking. If an old outstanding challan is found on any vehicle during police checking, then necessary steps will be taken to impound it on the spot, however, this seizure will not be applicable on those vehicles which do not come under regular police checking.

Vehicles will be blacklisted, fitness and PUC certificates will also be stopped

The Supreme Court, not only limited to seizure, has also ordered the states to impose several other digital and administrative restrictions for recovery of dues. Under this, online services of the guilty vehicles will be completely frozen and they will be immediately blacklisted on the transport portal. Along with this, the transfer of ownership and sale of such vehicles will be completely stopped. Till the vehicle owners do not pay the entire fine, fitness certificate and Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificate will also not be issued to the concerned vehicles.