Taxi driver moves plea against challan issued on violations captured by speed cameras; Delhi HC issues notice

New Delhi [India], October 8 (ANI): The Delhi High Court on Thursday issued notice to the Delhi government, traffic police, and union Transport Ministry on a petition filed by a taxi driver against challans issued on the basis of alleged violations captured by the speed cameras.
Dharmendra Kumar, a taxi driver, had filed the case through advocate Praveen Agrawal on the ground that the Delhi government cannot refuse to issue a certificate of fitness to his vehicle simply because traffic challans are pending against him.
A division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan sought response from the respondents and slated the matter for November 12.
The plea said that the Union Transport Ministry had issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) in December 2017 to all state transport departments prohibiting any work like fitness, NOC, permit renewal, etc, being carried on a vehicle if any traffic challans are pending against it. Kumar has filed a petition in the High Court to quash these conditions of the SOP.
The plea alleged that due to the SOP, Delhi's transport department is refusing to issue a Certificate of Fitness if there are traffic challans.
Agrawal alleged that the department is not even giving the reasons for its refusal as required under section 56 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and further claimed that the transport department is violating its own rule 38 which mandates it to issue form CFX with a list of defects if the fitness is refused.
He produced an RTI reply from the department admitting that form CFX has not been implemented and the same will be now put in practice by making an appropriate provision in the computer system.
Criticising the challans themselves, Agrawal said that none of the challans is issued are in a lawful manner because not even a single challan was duly served upon his client.
Each challan was merely intimated through an SMS which is not a valid mode of service as per a July order of the Supreme Court of India, he claimed. Agrawal said these challans will be challenged on a dozen different grounds in traffic courts as and when the same are served.
He submitted that it may be noted that the taxi drivers are up in arms against the authorities since the beginning of this year when they began to receive intimation of challans on SMS, mostly related to overspeeding. (ANI)