Cracking down on drunken driving in Hyderabad, the Third and Fourth Metropolitan Magistrate Court at Erramanzil sentenced 39 people to imprisonment, while imposing an overall fine of Rs 7 lakh.
The court while completely cancelling one person's driving license (DL), has suspended three DL's for a period of six months to one year.
All those who were awarded an imprisonment, were sent to the Chanchalguda jail in the city.
While 26 of them were sentenced to two days in prison, eight persons were given three days, while five people were sentenced to be imprisoned for five days.
In a press release, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), Dr V Ravinder said, "The people who were caught in drunken driving cases will be likely to face difficulties in getting government jobs, passport and visa clearances."
He also said that such operations to curb traffic violations, will continue to improve road safety.
In October, over 97 people were arrested for drunk driving in the city in a single week and were sentenced to imprisonment for two to ten days.
“The court ordered the jail term according to the level of alcohol in one’s blood and the vehicle used. Three years ago, a drunken driver was caught five times. Now we have to scout for repeat offenders and that is a big change. Since everything is Aadhaar-linked, information about the case will not remain in private realm,” AV Ranganath, deputy commissioner of police, traffic, had told Deccan Chronicle at the time.
Earlier in September, it was reported that in just 14 days, the Cyberabad police booked as many as 508 motorists and sent 80 people to prison for drunk driving, under the jurisdictions of 13 police stations.
The data pertaining to drunk drive cases shows that Hyderabad has been struggling with high levels of drunk driving and underage driving, despite various measures that have been taken up by the police.
Much to shocking as many as 17,000 cases of drunk driving were booked in 2016, and nearly 7,000 people were sent to jail.