The Greater Chennai police on Thursday informed the Madras High Court that it had decided to introduce a mobile application within a couple of days to enable the general public to shoot and share photographs of road traffic violations including failure to wear helmets, jumping signals, crossing the stop lines and so on with the police.
Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad, who were seized of a public interest litigation petition for mandatory wearing of helmets even by those who ride pillion, Additional Advocate General P.H. Arvindh Pandian said the mobile app would help in involving citizens in the enforcement of law.
When the judges expressed disappointment over non-implementation of the law, which requires both the riders on every two-wheeler to wear helmets, he said the city police had booked 4,22,152 (3,13,357 against two-wheeler riders and 1,08,795 against pillion riders) cases between January and June 5 this year for not wearing helmets.
Suspending licences
The AAG also pointed out that Justice N. Kirubakaran of the High Court had in one of the judgments passed on June 8, 2015, directed the officials to suspend the driving licences of those who ride motor vehicles without helmets.
Subsequently, two public interest litigation petitions were filed in the court to prevent the police from enforcing the compulsory helmet rule. However, the then first Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam dismissed both the petitions on June 30, 2015 after observing that the single judge’s order was aimed at saving lives.
After recording the submissions made by the AAG, the Division Bench led by Justice Manikumar granted him time till Wednesday to submit a comprehensive report on the action taken by the police so far to implement the helmet rule and a compilation of judgments passed so far on the issue by different Benches of the High Court.