To recover fines, link traffic challans to power bills: Supreme Court

NEW DELHI: Supreme Court Monday asked govt to adopt an innovative approach to make traffic law violaters pay fines and suggested challans should be linked with electricity bill to force them to pay the penalty or face power disconnection.A bench of Justices J B Pardiwala and Justice K V Viswanathan also suggested that authorities should take steps for blacklisting vehicles with unpaid challans and also block ownership transfers."It is not just sufficient to keep issuing e-challans. Police may issue thousands and lakhs of such e-challans. Question is recovery of fines as sought to be imposed by way of the e-challans...If people are not paying traffic challans, add it to their electricity dues bill. They'll have to pay electricity bills, otherwise the power line will be disconnected. Work it out. In this country, you have to find a way out," the bench said.The court was informed that challans of Rs 45,000 crore have been issued but Rs 25,000 crore has been recovered so far.It also suggested random checks of vehicles to identify those against which e-challans remained unpaid.Get the latest India News and Live updates. Download the TOI app.