The Supreme Court on Monday suggested that unpaid traffic e-challans be linked to electricity bills, as ₹20,000 crore of these fines are yet to be recovered by authorities in various states and union territories (UTs).
The suggestion was made on Monday by a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K.V. Viswanathan, who had been hearing a plea about the electronic enforcement of traffic violations and the recovery of unpaid e-challan fines.
When the apex court was informed that ₹45,000 crore worth of e-challan fines were to be recovered across India—of which only ₹25,000 crore had been recovered so far—Justice Pardiwala held that the authorities needed to focus on recovering the fines, rather than simply issuing "thousands and lakhs of such e-challans", as per a Bar and Bench report.
“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 bench added, in order to push people towards clearing their traffic fines.
Other measures suggested by the Supreme Court included licence suspension, blacklisting vehicles linked to such challans on the Parivahan portal and blocks on documents—such as the renewal of registration certificates; the issuance of fitness, Pollution Under Control (PUC), or duplicate certificates; and changes in ownership.
“Let there be random checking of vehicles and if found that e-challan has not been honoured, necessary steps to be taken to impound the vehicle itself,” the bench added, pointing out that such measures needed to work on the ground level.
(More details are awaited.)
