A man in Hyderabad was found with 117 pending challans registered by the traffic police against his two-wheeler, amounting to a total of Rs 29,720 in fines currently unpaid. The man was caught during a routine vehicle checking by the Abids traffic police, and his two-wheeler has now been seized. According to reports, the man was identified as Mohammed Farid Khan, and was caught while passing the Hyderabad Collectorate. As per the Motor Vehicles (MV) Act, the police can impound vehicles with over 10 unpaid challans.
The Hyderabad police's e-challan website states that a warning has been issued to the owner to clear the challans, failing which a chargesheet would be filed against the vehicle. Most of the challans that were issued beginning from 2014 were for riding without a helmet or wrong parking. Several challans issued after the beggining of the COVID-19 pandemic were related to not wearing a face mask in public places while riding. Some fines also pertained to riding on the wrong side of the road.
The Hyderabad traffic police have stepped up checks across the city to enforce the helmet rule and identify violators, especially those on two-wheelers. The department is also conducting checks to ensure that people are wearing masks and following COVID-19 protocol.
Similar cases have come up in the past. In May 2019, officials from the same Abids traffic police caught a two-wheeler which had a staggering 105 traffic challans pending against it. The challans resulted in unpaid fines worth Rs 16,390 that the vehicle owner, identified as Venkatesh, had racked up since July 2016. In January that year, the Gachibowli traffic police under the Cyberabad commissionerate detained two vehicles which had more than 100 pending challans against them.
An RTI query in 2019 had stated that under the jurisdiction of the Hyderabad traffic police alone, violators owed as much as Rs 62 lakh in unpaid fines, which includes fines pending from before the state's bifurcation. The RTI states that while two-wheelers had pending traffic challans amounting to Rs 53 lakh, cars owed around Rs 5 lakh in fines, while auto rickshaws and TSRTC buses owed over Rs 7 lakh.