Frequent Road Accidents On State & National Highways | Chhattisgarh HC Initiates SUO Moto PIL, Seeks State/NHAI Reply

Expressing concerns over the alarming rate of road accidents, a bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Parth Prateem Sahu has sought responses from state authorities and officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).

The division bench directed the registration of the suo-moto public interest litigation petition last week based on news items published in Dainik Bhaskar, Bilaspur Bhaskar, and Nav Bharat Newspapers about three incidents of road accidents in the state.

The first incident relates to a news item published on May 21 (in Dainik Bhaskar) concerning the death of 19 persons when the pickup vehicle met with an accident because of a failure of brakes. The driver jumped out of the said vehicle to save his own life and let the vehicle fall into a ditch 35 feet down.

The Court noted that the news report stated that there was no indicator in the vehicle. Even though the vehicle was meant to carry goods, 36 persons were travelling in the same car along with 30 sacks of Tendu leaves, and the vehicle did not even have a fitness certificate.

The news report also mentioned that out of the 19 persons who died, 18 were female 3 were minors and all the deceased belonged to Baiga tribe.

The second news item published in Bilaspur Bhaskar on May 21 depicted the pathetic traffic condition, especially on the highways and outskirts of Bilaspur City. The news report states that most of the accidents which had occurred were the outcome of drinking and driving, and in the last four years, 107 lives have been lost.

The Court noted that the news report stated that alcohol is being served to people who visit restaurants and dhabas on the sides of the highways at night.

The third news item, upon which the HC took suo moto cognizance, was published in Navbharat regarding the same incident reported by Dainik Bhaskar, in which 19 Baiga tribals lost their lives while returning home after picking 4 tendu leaves.

Taking note of the above news reports, the Court observed that they portrayed a very alarming traffic condition on the streets and roads, especially on the highways, whether State or National.

The Court further noted that even the traffic condition inside the city is also pathetic because of overspeeding, roaming of stray cattle on the roads, non-maintenance of the roads, poor lighting, absence of proper signage, absence of reflectors, lack of patrolling by the authorities, disorderly parking of trucks and vehicles on the roads, especially during nights and without even switching on the parking lights, driving of vehicles after consuming alcohol etc.

“The reasons may be many more but the net result of these flaws is that innocent people are constrained to lose their lives without their being any fault on their part. Mostly, the poor labourers are made to travel in the vehicles which meant for carrying goods and they are carried in those vehicles even much beyond their load capacity,” the Court remarked.

The Court added that while ex-gratia compensation can provide some assistance to families affected by road accidents, it cannot replace the loss of a breadwinner, which can leave a lasting void and devastating the family.

The Court emphasized that the state's priority should be to implement necessary measures to eliminate the causes of road accidents and prevent such casualties.

In this regard, the Court also referred to the Supreme Court's April 6, 2023 order (April 6, 2023) in S. Rajaseekaran case wherein the Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (for short, the MORTH) indicated that the Ministry will take up the exercise of standardisation and bring out detailed guidelines to integrate software and hardware with e-vahan/e-challan and that the MORTH intended to standardise national guidelines for hardware and software so that there may be uniformity across the country concerning the modalities for implementing Section 136-A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short, the Act of 1988), which deals with electronic monitoring and enforcement of road safety.

Given this, the Court directed respondent No. 3 (the Chhattisgarh Transport Commissioner), respondent No. 10 (the Regional Officer of the National Highway Division, Raipur) and respondent No. 12 (the Project Director of the National Highway Authority of India, Bilaspur) to file their personal affidavits indicating as to what steps they have taken in compliance of the order passed by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in S. Rajaseekaran (supra).

The Court further directed them to bring on record the circulars/orders issued by them from time to time to reduce the road accidents which is occurring frequently in the State as well as National Highways and also in the other parts of the State.

Importantly, the respondents have also been asked to inform this Court whether the District Road Safety Committees have been constituted and, if they have been constituted, whether they are functioning as per the directions/ guidelines issued by the Supreme Court Committee on Road Safety and various other guidelines issued by the Hon'ble Supreme Court, as stated above.

The matter will be heard next on 25th June, 2024