Read Time: 04 minutes
Court noted that the vehicle mentioned in the challan was not even present at the location at the time of the alleged violation
A Magistrate Court in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, has recently ordered a traffic cop to compensate Rs 1,000 for erroneously issuing an e-challan against the wrong vehicle.
Court held that the challan had been wrongfully issued due to the inadvertence and carelessness of the challaning officer.
The owner of the vehicle against which the e-challan had been erroneously issued, approached the court of Special Mobile Magistrate (Traffic), Srinagar by filing an application seeking dismissal of the challan.
The vehicle owner submitted that the challan was to be sent to another scooty, instead the traffic officer issued a challan against his vehicle for being without a helmet under the provision of Section-177 MV Act and imposed a fine of Rs 1000.
He argued that due to the mistake committed by the officials of the traffic department, he had to suffer a loss and had to spend his precious time and money on the mistake which was committed by the traffic department.
The concerned challaning officer also appeared and accepted that he had inadvertently challaned the wrong vehicle.
Special Mobile Magistrate (Traffic) Mudasar Farooq noted that the applicant was not present on the spot on the day of the occurrence.
Therefore, he held the challan defective and dismissed the same.
Along with ordering compensation for the applicant, court ordered the defective challan to be taken down and directed the SSP Traffic City Srinagar to institute an e-challan against the actual violator.
Moreover, while noting that it appeared that either the traffic cops manning the system were not fully trained to operate the e- challaning system or traffic cops were not taking due care and caution at the time of initiation of e-challan, court directed the SSP Traffic (City), Srinagar to sensitize the traffic officials dealing with e-challaning system.
"...so that the innocent persons will not be forced to face difficulties in future," court said.
Case Title: Suhail Manzoor Bhat v. SSP Traffic Police City, Srinagar
Please Login or Register
