Supreme Court suggests ways to recover unpaid traffic challans of ₹20,000 crore: 'Add it to electricity bill'

The Supreme Court on Monday suggested ways for states and Union Territories to recover unpaid e-challan fines after it was informed that fines amounting to around ₹20,000 crore were yet to be recovered.

A Bench of Justice JB Pardiwala and Justice KV Viswanathan made the suggestions during the hearing of a plea concerning the electronic enforcement of traffic violations and recovery of unpaid e-challan fines. The application was heard as part of a long-running public interest litigation petition on road safety filed in 2012 by Coimbatore-based orthopaedic surgeon S Rajaseekaran.

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“It is not just sufficient to keep issuing e-challans. Police may issue thousands and lakhs of such e-challans. The question is recovery of fines as sought to be imposed by way of the e-challans,” Justice Pardiwala said, according to Bar and Bench.

The court was informed that states and Union Territories have to recover around ₹45,000 crore in e-challan fines, of which approximately ₹25,000 crore has been recovered so far.

One of the judges said the government needs to find ways to recover the fines rather than merely issuing challans after being informed about the pending dues, according to a Bar and Bench report.

The court discussed various ways through which traffic challan fines could be recovered from violators. One of the methods suggested by the court was linking unpaid challans to electricity bills.

“If people are not paying traffic challans, add it to their electricity dues bill. They’ll have to pay electricity bills else power line will be disconnected. Work it out. In this country, you have to find a way out,” the court said.

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Other measures discussed included not allowing the renewal of registration certificates for vehicles with pending fines, preventing the issuance of duplicate certificates and blocking changes in ownership details until all outstanding challans were cleared.

The court also suggested blacklisting vehicles with unpaid challans on the Parivahan portal and blocking ownership transfers. It further discussed withholding fitness and Pollution Under Control (PUC) certificates for such vehicles, as well as preventing the renewal of driving licences and taking steps to suspend licences already in force.