New Delhi: Five months after the central government approved the amendment of the Motor Vehicles Act and enhanced the penalties for violations, Delhi traffic police are yet to be authorised to collect the fines in the absence of a Delhi government notification to the effect.Consequently, police said, almost one lakh violators have been issued court notices, but with the capacity of the courts limited, the scope for drives against road-rule violations has become limited.According to police, around 4,000 notices are generated every day. An officer explained that a court notice requires the violator to hand over his vehicle registration certificate or driving licence to the booking officer who forwards it to the court. There a magistrate fixes the penalty amount.Once the compounding fines are fixed by the court, violators receive a text message on their mobile phones. Only after the fine is paid in the court can the violator collect the vehicle documents submitted while receiving a notice.Police data shows that almost 50% of the challans are issued to two-wheeler riders for infringements like triple riding and riding without a helmet. It is fairly difficult to get such violators to hand over their documents. “It was easier earlier to convince a driver to hand over his documents. These days we spend at least an extra hour beyond duty hours trying to coax violators even to let us inspect their documents,” said a traffic cop at India Gate.With the cops being forced to use their discretion while issuing notices due to these reasons, there was a 60% dip in the number of challans issued per day after September 1 last year. Police sources revealed that the handful of traffic courts processing these notices are already overwhelmed since all violations are now lodged with the courts with police unable to dispose of the cases on the roads as earlier.While some of the challans are payable in virtual courts, violators line up at such courts not to pay the fines but to query about court procedures. At the courts in Karkardoomaand Tis Hazari, the traffic police has had to set up enquiry desks to guide violators to the courts concerned.The cops stress that such measure can be permanent. “We can’t employ our personnel to manage people at the court,” an officer told TOI. “Setting up inquiry desk requires us to divert personnel from traffic management duties to answer queries in court complexes. We can only hope the notification for spot fines are issued soon.”