NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the Centre and the AAP government to treat as representation a PIL claiming that the mechanism of issuing challans under the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act of 2019 was "arbitrary and faulty" and needs to be rectified using better technology.
A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan directed that the grievances ventilated in the plea, which is filed by a lawyer, be decided in accordance with the law, rules, regulations and government policy applicable to the facts of the case.
The court said a decision be taken on the representation as expeditiously as possible and practicable, and with this direction, disposed of the petition by Sonali Karwasra.
The court at the outset made it clear it was not going to entertain the matter and suggested that it can ask the authorities concerned to treat the plea as a representation.
The petitioner agreed with the court's suggestion.
The petition had claimed that challans were being issued without proper and reliable technology in place, and there was a need for "standardisation of the technology used for monitoring traffic violations".
It also claimed that there are "several lacunas" in implementing the Act efficiently due to "obsolete and outdated technologies used by the authorities to detect traffic violations".
Karwasra alleged in her plea that there have been instances where hefty fines have been issued due to faulty equipment, and then the penalties had to be revoked.
One such instance referred to in the plea was the alleged bulk recall of more than 1.
57 lakh challans issued by the traffic department for over-speeding on NH 24 between August and October 10, 2019.
"The speed violation detection technology, the drunken driving breath analyzing technology and the red-light violation technology are not in accordance with the changing times," the petition claimed.
The plea had sought directions to the Centre and the Delhi government to ensure proper infrastructure is in place for monitoring traffic violations and to standardise and upgrade the technology being used so that it is in consonance with international norms.