Government Comes to Aid of Vehicle Owners After Allegations of Harassment

• Published On: 25 September 2019
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New Lifeline for Vehicle Owners

Ever since the amended Motor Vehicle Acts have come into play, there have been a lot of cases across the country where vehicle owners have been fined heavily for not producing original copies of documents like the driving license and registration certificate among others. This has also led to the widespread agitation against the government around the country. For the same, the Road and Transport Ministry has asked the state governments and their police departments not to issue challan to vehicles or drivers before verifying the details of driving license, registration certificate and PUC using m-Parivahan or e-challan app in case the driver fails to produce the original or digital copy of such documents.

According to a report by TOI, the Road and Transport Ministry has also emphasized that the enforcement agencies must accept documents stored in Digilocker of the m-Parivahan app as valid. The ministry’s circular said,

 “If the citizen is not able to show the digital copy or information on Digilocker or m-Parivahan due to unavailability of mobile or any such platform, in such a case enforcement agency can verify the details of DL and RC on their m-Parivahan app or e-challan app by entering the DL number or vehicle number.

This comes as a huge relief to drivers who have all the legal documents related to their vehicles but forget to carry them. The ministry has instructed the same on several occasions in past but still, there have been a lot of instances where the cops don’t accept digitally stored documents. The circular issued by the ministry further said

 “Citizens are unnecessarily being harassed and asked to produce the original documents. When they are not able to produce the original physical copy of the documents and produce only the digital document(s), they are being considered as driving without DL, RC, PUC etc. and being fined for it,”

What this also means is that if you don’t have your documents stored on Digilocker or due to some reasons aren’t able to produce them either digitally or physically, you can still avoid fines by telling your DL number so that the cops can check it through the app. Therefore, it is best to carry a picture of your license and other related documents on the phone as it can help you in case of an emergency. Best is to store all such documents on Digilocker as it is completely legal now. Also, as mentioned above, scan and keep a copy of these documents on your phone and on cloud storage. The latter will help you retrieve your documents from anywhere and from any device in case you are stuck in an unfortunate situation.

In fact, the Indian government launched mobile applications like DigiLocker and mParivan under the Digital India scheme. Using DigiLocker also means reduced chances of documents like the Driving License and Registration Certificate being misplaced which results in a lot of problems then. The government’s initiative to go paperless in this aspect is appreciable as it reduces the hassle of carrying all the document upon oneself. Of late, applications like the DigiLocker have gained a lot of popularity for their obvious benefits. However, cops from various states still do not accept the documents as valid on several occasions. With this latest circular issued by the Road and Transport ministry, let’s hope that things will take a better turn.