Home Ministry asks state governments to use harsher IPC section for traffic offenders

NEW DELHI: Worried over the rising number of deaths in road accidents, Rajnath Singh led union home ministry on Thursday asked the State governments and union territories to use harsher sections of Indian Penal Code ( IPC) and Motor Vehicle (MV) act to prosecute and punish persons causing injury or deaths. The Centre’s advisory comes days ahead of Delhi government’s plans to implement odd/even car scheme from January 1.

According to statistics maintained by Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, during 2014 out of 4,89,400 reported road accidents, there were 1,39,671 fatalities. An analysis by NCRB also revealed that over speeding and reckless driving are the major contributors besides other causes such as driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol. While 36.8 per cent of deaths were due to over speeding, 30.5 per cent were due to reckless driving.

The Centre also cautioned the State governments to exercise utmost care while granting licenses. "It is of utmost importance that drivers are aware of road safety rules and are issued driving licenses only after proving their competence as stipulated in the MV act. License issuing authorities must put in place a robust system for competence evaluation to ensure that only eligible applicants pass such tests," states the communication.

It has also been observed that the cases of drunken driving are on the rise ahead of Christmas and New Year. In the past, Delhi traffic police used to catch violators using breath analyzers and send them to jail. The government also asked the State authorities to utilize various technologies such as speed radar guns, issuing e-challans to ensure better enforcement of rules, says the advisory.

The home ministry also advised that besides IPC, the law enforcing agencies shall use provision of MV act against the offenders.

An effort also need to be made to "sensitize civil society on the dangerous effect of over speeding, rash driving and other violations of traffic rules so that they not only convince the drivers to comply with such requirements but also come forward to inform police of such violations through photo or video proofs…," it says.