The 80.66 lakh vehicles were issued 2.36 crore e-challans and its collective cost is Rs 996.85 crores. (File) The Maharashtra Highway Safety Patrol (HSP), better known as the highway traffic police, has collected e-challan dues worth Rs 57.15 crore from 11.60 lakh motorists in a month’s time. The vehicle owners paid up fearing that they would have to be present before the Lok Adalat. The motorists were served a pre-litigation notice asking them to be present before the court on March 12 for defaulting on payment of their e-challan fines.
The motorists, who fail to appear before the Lok Adalat and continue to keep their dues pending, will have to face a case in regular court now, a highway traffic police official had said. “If the motorists fail to appear before Lok Adalat on March 12, we will file a case against them in a regular court,” he said. In December 2021, through Lok Adalat, an amount worth Rs 51.01 crore was recovered.
The Highway Traffic police had started an exercise of serving pre-litigation notices to motorists in 2021, asking them to be present before a Lok Adalat for non-payment of e-challans. After getting a positive response, this is the third time the notices were issued.
Since February 12, owners of 80.66 lakh vehicles who violated a traffic rule and later defaulted on e-challan payment, were served a notice through a SMS link. The link allows one to download the notice. All of them have been asked to be present before their respective Lok Adalats.
As many as 80.66 lakh vehicles were issued 2.36 crore e-challans and its collective cost is Rs 996.85 crores. Overall from 2019, when the e-challan system was started till February this year, 3.18 crore e-challans remain unpaid with the total due totalling to Rs 1,332 crore.
- The Indian Express website has been rated GREEN for its credibility and trustworthiness by Newsguard, a global service that rates news sources for their journalistic standards.
