The Motor Vehicles Act was passed by the union government – and amendments were made to it – because ‘Mechanically Propelled Vehicles’ is a subject under the concurrent list of the Constitution. This means that both the union and the state governments can make and amend laws on the subject.
Since state governments can also take a call on the law, states like Gujarat, Maharashtra and now Karnataka, have the power to change the fines if they want to.
Incidentally, the increased fines were passed by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre, and all three states now revising these fines to lower them are BJP-ruled.
It was reported how a Bengaluru man had to pay a fine of Rs 17,000 since the higher fines kicked in. The Bengaluru motorist, Akash, is a resident of Varthur and works with a private company. Out of the Rs 17,000, he had to pay Rs 10,000 for drinking and driving, Rs 5,000 for driving without a license and Rs 2,000 as both he and his pillion rider did not have helmets.
The traffic police department has been enforcing the new fines for the last few days. As per statistics released by Bengaluru Traffic Police department, there were 6,813 people booked for traffic violations in Bengaluru between September 4 and September 9 (until 10 am). Traffic police officials collected over Rs 72 lakh in fines in the same period.
