india

Updated: Sep 23, 2019 22:04 IST

The Centre on Monday chided states and law enforcement agencies for not accepting vehicle documents in their digital form and challaning those who were unable to produce the physical documents, since the amended Motor Vehicle Act came into effect.

“Citizens are unnecessarily being harassed and asked to produce the original document. When they are unable to produce the original physical copy of the documents and produce only the digital documents, they are being considered as driving without DL, RC, insurance, PUC etc and are being fined for it,” the ministry said in its statement.

The penalty for driving without a driving licence as per the new rules was increased to Rs 5000 from Rs 500.

People can produce driving licences and vehicle registration and other vehicle related documents in electronic form to law enforcement agencies, according to transport ministry guidelines. Documents are recognized at par with the original documents as per the provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000 if uploaded on the Centre’s DigiLocker app or the mParivahan app.

“This ministry has been receiving grievances after the implementation of certain provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act where citizens have raised concerns that the document available for Digi-Locker app of the ministry of electronics and Information Technology or m-Parivahan app are not being considered valid by some enforcement officers of traffic police or the motor vehicles department of the state/ UT’s,” the ministry said in its advisory.

The enforcement agencies can also simultaneously access these details from the e-Challan app, which has data for on-line verification of vehicles and its license status.

“Unnecessary harassment and fines for not being able to produce the physical copy is not justified as per rules,” the ministry said.