The vehicle owners in Bengaluru need not produce magistrate's court order to secure the release of their vehicles confiscated by the police for lockdown violation.
As many as 35,000 vehicles seized by the city police since March 25, will now be released from May 1, against a penalty of Rs 1,000 for cars and Rs 500 for two- and three-wheelers, along with a bond stating that he/she shall not violate the lockdown orders again.
The Karnataka High Court on Thursday approved the release of 35,000 vehicles seized during the nationwide lockdown by the respective jurisdiction police, though the rules demand that the violators should file the application before the concerned magistrate's court under the CrPC, as the cases were booked under the section 57 (1)(b) of the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and section 188 (disobeying prohibitory orders) of the Indian Penal Code.
The court, taking cognisance of the fact that the pile-up of applications would crowd courts and breach social distancing norms has permitted the jurisdictional police officer to release the vehicles, which will speed up the process, too.
Earlier, City Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao had tweeted saying, the vehicles would be returned from May 1, in a phased manner to the owners who had all the documents in order.
"It’s decided to return the corona seized vehicles from 1/5/20 onwards. Those seized first will be returned first. The documents will be verified and vehicle returned. This has the approval of Hon CM and HM. We are doing the paperwork to ease the process," tweeted Rao.
