Overloading In Vehicles: Allahabad High Court Calls Upon Transport Commissioner In Plea For Compliance Of Motor Vehicles Act

A Division Bench of Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice Piyush Agrawal has asked the Commissioner to file a complete response in the form of an affidavit before next date of listing, i.e. January 6, 20201.

"Having considered the argument advanced and the facts averred in the petition for writ, we deem it appropriate to call upon the respondent no.2, Transport Commissioner, Uttar Pradesh to respond the issue with regard to compliance of the mandatory provision of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 referred in the preceding paras," the order read.

The Court has specifically sought for a response on compliance of Sections 113 (Limits of weight and limitations on use), 114 (Power to have vehicle weighed), 115 (Power to restrict the use of vehicles) and Section 194 (Penalty for driving vehicle exceeding permissible weight) of the Act.

The Petitioner in the present plea had alleged that though the State machinery is required to check overloading on the vehicles but at the specific place referred in the petition for writ and also in the entire State of Uttar Pradesh, the vehicles passenger as well as commercial are moving in violation of the provisions above. It was submitted that overloading in the vehicles is a big reason for road accidents.

In 2017, the UP Government had collected at least Rs. 23 crore as fine from overloaded heavy vehicles.

In September 2019, the Central Government implemented the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, which enhanced penalty for overloading from Rs. 2,000 (and additional amount of Rs. 1,000 per tonne of excess load) to Rs. 20,000 (and additional amount of Rs. 2,000 per tonne of excess load). The Amendment Act further stipulated that mere payment of fine shall not set the violator free and the motor vehicle shall not be allowed to move before such excess load is removed by the person in control.

In July this year, the Yogi Adityanath led-government had announced higher penalty for traffic violations, including overloading.

Case Title: Satish Kumar Chaudhary v. State of UP & Ors.

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