E-Enforcement Of Section 136A Of MV Act| SC Proposes Plan For Electronic Monitoring To Reduce Road Accidents

In a Public Interest Litigation filed seeking a uniform electronic monitoring system and enforcement of road safety on national and state highways as per Section 136-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, the Supreme Court yesterday was apprised of the report of the meeting convened between the Secretary in the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways and Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety (SCCORS).

The minutes of the meeting indicated that the Ministry is in process of standardizing national guidelines for E-Vahan/E-Challan with regard to the modalities for implementing Section 136-A of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988.

It was submitted before the Bench of Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice J.B. Pardiwala that in compliance with the order dated February 6, 2023, to place before the Court an agreed formulation on setting out modalities for implementing the provisions of Section 136A, the Ministry (MoRTH) has indicated that it will standardize national guidelines for hardware and software so that there is uniformity across the nation with regard to the modalities for implementing Section 136-A of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988.

"Will take up the exercise of standardisation and bring out detailed guidelines to integrate software and hardware with E-Vahan/E-Challan", undertook the Ministry in the report before the Court.

Further, the report submitted by the SCCORS revealed that "based on these discussions, it was decided to task the NCRB to prepare a Concept Paper, on the modalities of implementation of a nation-wide roll-out of effective enforcement under Section 136-A. It was further agreed that the concept paper would be prepared in the next 3 to 4 months and submitted to the SCCORS. If required, funds for the preparation of the concept paper would be provided by the MORTH."

Considering the report placed before the Court and the submissions made, the Supreme Court directed (Retd.) Justice AM Sapre, Chairperson of the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety to convene the meeting with various stakeholders and submit the concept paper consisting of an agreed and feasible implementation plan to the Supreme Court for orders within a further period of 3 months.

It was noted that the concept paper would be guided by the provisions of Section 136 A and the rules issued thereunder and develop a time-bound E-enforcement road map that demonstrably reduces fatalities and accidents. Further, it could provide inputs regarding standardized hardware and software and the SOPs required for a seamless, two-way, real-time proliferation of data collection and processing between the enforcement officers in the field, and the state/central control centres.

As per the order, the relevant stakeholders to prepare the concept note will compromise with the Ministry of Home Affairs; Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, National Highways Authority of India, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, National Crime Research Bureau, Member Secretary (SCCORS); Representative of Selected State Governments and Representative of the Transportation Research and Injury Prevention Programme of IIT Delhi; and NGOs like the Save Life Foundation.

The Court further directed Kishan Chand Jain, the petitioner-in-person, to make his submissions on suggestions on E-Challans before the Committee and Advocate Gaurav Agarwal, the Amicus Curiae to place an updated status report on the next date of hearing August 7, 2023. 

The application filed before the Court by the applicant Kishan Chand Jain stated that as per the figures of the intelligent traffic management system, only a very negligible percentage of 7.61 of the total amount of the e-challan has been recovered. The application read, "recovery of e-challans amounts, being an integral part of electronic monitoring and enforcement of the road safety as envisaged in S. 136A of the MV Act read with S. 167A of the Rules, deserves to be ensured in a time-bound manner". 

It further suggested 'one nation-one e-challan system' and that multiple state portals create hardships for the registered owner of an MV to find out and pay e-challans. The application also points out that most of the National Highways are not integrated with e-challan systems and that such a technology-based system of auto e-challans without human intervention with the use of artificial intelligence be chalked out. 

The petition filed highlights the major cause of deaths on roads and that 70% of deaths were caused by such overspeeding and that Section 136A, introduced by the Motor Vehicles Amendment Act 2019 should be implemented in letter and spirit so that the roads could be electronically monitored to prevent such deaths.

Cause Title: S.Rajaseekaran v. Union of India & Ors. W.P. (C.) No. 295 of 2012

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