LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Monday reserved the verdict on a plea challenging the powers of the Punjab Safe City Authority (PSCA) to issue e-challans to the motorists for violation of traffic rules.

Earlier, Additional Advocate General Akhtar Javed argued before the court that the PSCA was not issuing e-challan, but just assisting the traffic police in monitoring the violations by motorists on roads.

He said the law authorised the traffic police personnel to issue a fine ticket in the name of the vehicle’s owner. He asked the court to dismiss the petition.

After hearing the arguments, Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh reserved the verdict.

Previously, a counsel for the petitioner, Falak Sher, pleaded 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 magistrates concerned had the jurisdiction to impose 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-challan from the vehicle owners. He pointed out that the authority had been issuing e-challans without any legal cover.

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

During the last hearings, the judge had questioned the legality of the e-challan issued to an owner of a vehicle for violation of traffic rules by its driver.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2022