The Greater Chennai City Traffic Police (GCCTP) on Tuesday informed the Madras High Court of having booked 51,414 cases till May this year for the offence of driving motor vehicles with defective number plates and said, a hefty fine amount of ₹2.57 crore was imposed on the violators.
First Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice R. Mahadevan and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq was informed that 17,818 of those cases had been convicted and a fine amount of ₹89.09 lakh was collected. The data was submitted before the Bench in response to a public interest litigation petition.
R. Sudhakar, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic), GCCTP, filed a counter affidavit before the court stating that 6,279 cases were booked till May this year for the use of unauthorised dark sun films on motor vehicles and a fine amount of ₹31.39 lakh was imposed on those violators.
As many as 2,823 of those cases had ended up in conviction and a fine amount of ₹14.11 lakh was collected, the police officer said. He stated that the crackdown continues against the use of unauthorised sunfilms and defective number plates as well as the misuse of press, advocate, doctor and Army stickers.
When Madras Bar Association president M. Baskar complained to the bench that the police were imposing fine even on vehicles that display advocate stickers issued by Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (BCTNP), Additional Public Prosecutor R. Muniyapparaj said, the BCTNP stickers alone could be exempted.
However, the PIL petitioner’s counsel K. Aravindan said, advocates and doctors could paste the stickers on sun visors, instead of the windshields of their cars, and display them only when they enter the court campus or when they are rushing to attend to medical emergencies.
Finding the suggestion to be acceptable, the judges asked the APP to consider it. The ACJ also expressed the need for the police to increase the frequency of vehicle checking and said, vehicles with all kinds of stickers on the windshields and the number plates could still be spotted on the city roads.
Though the PIL petitioner S. Devadoss Gandhi Wilson, a driving school owner from Chennai, had also complained about the Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) buses being wrapped with colourful advertisement stickers which could distract the motorists, the AdCP said, only the government could take steps regarding it.
However, in a separate counter affidavit, the Transport Commissioner A. Shanmugasundaram said, “the advertisement stickers placed on MTC buses will get removed under due process of law.” After taking the counter affidavits on file, the Bench adjourned the hearing by two weeks for filing a further status report.
