RAJKOT: The vehicle owners who had been served e-memos in the past six months have been asked to settle their traffic violation fines at the Lok Adalat being held on Sunday. The traffic police will start registering from Monday non-cognizable offences against those who do not pay their fines by Sunday evening.
Rajkot city police has issued notices to those vehicle owners who did not pay the fines cited in the e-memos issued in the last six months and there are around 1.25 lakh e-memos worth of Rs 9 crore over this period. The total outstanding amount of e-memos issued by Rajkot police since 2017 is above Rs 150 crore for around 25 lakh e-memos.
According to Rajkot RTO, there are 23 lakh vehicles registered in Rajkot and out of this around 15 lakh vehicles ply in Rajkot city. Looking at this figure and the number of e-memos, every second vehicle in the city has perhaps a pending e-memo against it.
The police have decided to collect the e-memo fines of the last six month in the first phase. Assistant commissioner of police (traffic) V R Malhotra said, “The district legal service authority, as per the direction of the Supreme Court, has organised national Lok Adalat on Sunday and traffic police has been asked to put up the pending e-memo cases of the last six months before Lok Adalat for disposal. We had issued 1.25 lakh e-memos in the last six months. Now, we have issued notices through SMS to around 63,000 people about the Lok Adalat.”
The SMS notice states that “pay the outstanding e-memos or remain present in the Lok Adalat to settle the e-memo on June 26”. The traffic police has put up six tables at the Lok Adalat to collect the fines. “Prosecution in the form of non-cognizable offence in the traffic court will be initated from Monday against those who neither pay the e-memos nor remain present in the Lok Adalat,’’ Malhotra said.
According to sources, there is no clarity on how to collect the fines cited in e-memos that were issued before six months and that is why the city police is collecting the outstanding fines of the last six months only. The traffic police has not launched any prosecution till date in case of the pending e-memos since 2017.
In a recent PIL filed before Gujarat high court, it was submitted by the petitioner that section 200 of the Motor Vehicles Act deals with compoundable offences which can be settled with the payment of fine. However, on non-payment of fine, a prosecution can be launched by filing a complaint in court. Since the issue is pending before the high court, police are not forcing people to pay the fine of e-challans issued before six months.
