Tamil Nadu: Transport commissioner justifies original driving licence rule
Chennai: The Tamil Nadu transport department on Friday has informed the Madras high court that carrying original driving licence by motorists while driving vehicles is indispensable.
In his counter to the batch of petitions challenging the department’s notification, the transport commissioner said the new rule was introduced based on the recommendations of the Committee headed by Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, a retired judge of apex court. The insistence of original driving license was the fallout of the stringent directions issued by the Road Safety Committee of the Supreme Court.
The transport commissioner said the panel, headed by Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, constituted in 2014 to reduce the number of accidents in Tamil Nadu, had reported that road accidents are very high in Tamil Nadu when compared to other states. In August 2015, the committee had recommended suspension of the DL for the offences listed by it.
The counter further said that the committee has been time and again issuing several directions, the last one was on April 24 this year, which expressed its deep concern over the increase in the number of accidents and deaths.
It also expressed its displeasure on the issue for not implementing its directions to suspend the DLs of the offenders. The committee is regularly monitoring the accident scenario in the state. From January to July this year, the police had booked 58, 32,120 offences including 1, 79,230 cases of drunken driving. But the cases could not be referred to the RTOs concerned for suspension/cancellation of DLs in the absence of non-availability of the DLs at the time of booking the offences, the counter said.
The counter added that section 130 (1) of the Motor Vehicles Act makes it mandatory to produce the driving license if demanded by a police officer. The word original is not there in the rules as there is no need to mention it.
The DL to be produced by a driver is the document issued by the transport department as defined in Sec. 3. In other Acts also, whenever a document is mentioned, it means the original only, unless the law specifically mentions copy thereof, the counter clarified. Latest notification mandates carrying the original licence compulsory. The Tamil Nadu Lorry Owners Federation and Traffic Ramasamy challenged the notification. The matter adjourned to September 15 for further hearing.
