The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 inter alia provides for enhancement of penalties for offences for ensuring greater compliance and enhancing deterrence for violation of traffic rules which is intended to provide for better Road Safety resulting in reduction of accidents and fatalities on roads.
As per section 200 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 the State Government may, by notification in the official gazette, specify such amount for compounding of certain offences.
The Government has issued G.S.R 1081(E) dated 02.11.2019 to amend rule 139 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 vide which production of certificate of registration, insurance, fitness and permit, the driving license and any other relevant documents in electronic form has been made valid.
Ministry vide letter dated 08.08.2018 and 19.11.2018 has issued advisory to all the States/UTs to accept the documents presented in electronic form in the Digilocker platform or the mParivahan App as valid under Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 and be treated at par with the certificates issued by transport authorities. Further, the Ministry vide letter dated 17.12.2018 has circulated an advisory containing the Standard Operating Procedures to be adopted by traffic/ transport related enforcement agencies to validate or impound documents in case the citizens produce documents in an electronic form as per the provisions of rule 139 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989.
The Ministry had received certain grievances after the implementation of fines related to traffic violations under new Motor Vehicle (Amendment) Act, 2019 where citizens have raised the concerns that the documents available in Digilocker or mParivahan App of this Ministry are not considered valid by enforcement agencies. An advisory dated 23.11.2019 has been issued by this Ministry to State/UTs, advising them to issue necessary directions to all the enforcement agencies to accept documents in electronic form which is also available on Ministry’s website www.morth.nic.in.
This information was given by Shri Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport & Highways in reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
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