LAHORE: The provincial government’s lawyer on Monday told the Lahore High Court that the Motor Vehicle Ordinance 1965 empowers the Punjab Safe Cities Authority (PSCA) to issue e-challans to motorists for violation of traffic rules.

Additional Advocate General Akhtar Javed also stated that an amendment was introduced in the ordinance in 2021 to authorise the PSCA to issue e-challans. He pointed out that section 116 of the ordinance dealt with the ticketing system.

Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh was hearing a petition challenging the PSCA powers to issue e-challans.

Punjab Law Secretary Ahmad Raza Sarwar, transport secretary Nadir Chattha and PSCA chief operating officer Kamran Khan also appeared before the court.

The judge asked the law officer under what law e-challan was issued to a vehicle owner for traffic rule violation by the driver. He also asked him what would be the legal position if the authority issues an e-challan to a vehicle owner who has already died as the traffic rule is violated by its driver.

The lawyer said the vehicle owner was supposed to be responsible for any offence (related to vehicle) after its registration in his name.

The lawyer also questioned the maintainability of the petition.

The judge directed the law officer to come up with arguments on section 4 of the Motor Vehicle Ordinance that dealt with the eligibility for driving a vehicle, on the next hearing.

Falak Sher, a citizen, had filed the petition, pleading that the PSCA could only use its cameras to check speed of the vehicles plying on roads to use it as an evidence for manual challans. He said the judicial magistrate concerned had the jurisdiction to impose a fine or exonerate a motorist facing a charge after holding a summary trial.

He contended that the traffic police or the PSCA had no power to recover fines for e-challans from the vehicle owners. He pointed out that the authority had been issuing e-challans without a legal cover.

He asked the court to set aside the act of the authority as unlawful and restrain it from recovering the fine amounts from the motorists.

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2022