LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has declared that the e-challans being issued to the motorists for violation of traffic rules by the Punjab Safe City Authority (PSCA) are illegal for having no legal backing.

“The e-ticketing system has no sanction of law, it cannot sustain. Nullum crimen sine lege (no crime without law) is one of the fundamental principles of criminal law,” Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh observes in his judgement passed on a petition challenging the power of the safe city authority to issue e-challans.

The judge had reserved the verdict on March 28.

The judge notes that traffic offences are generally divided into three principal classes including parking and other standing violations, moving violations where no collision is involved and moving violations where a collision is involved.

Judge rules traffic offence entails personal liability and buck can’t be passed to vehicle owner unless he is offender himself

He says every country has its own set of laws to check traffic offences and in Pakistan this is a provincial subject so in Punjab the Provincial Motor Vehicles Ordinance, 1965 deals with them.

The judge says the e-tickets or e-challans are purportedly issued under section 116-A of the ordinance and the PSCA also seeks support from an LHC order passed in a petition filed by the Mall Road Traders Association which sought directions to the government for resolution of their problems.

Justice Sheikh observes that a bare perusal of the section 116-A shows that it provides for ticketing system only and it does not cater for e-ticketing.

The judge says the section empowers the police officer and a person authorised by the provincial government to draw a charge against the person if he commits an offence mentioned in the 12th schedule.

He notes that the authorised officer has to prepare Form-J at the spot and deliver three copies thereof to the offender on the spot against due acknowledgement, send the fourth copy to the bank and retain the fifth for the office record.

“Indubitably the authorised officer may seek assistance of the PSCA for enforcement of section 116-A but the latter cannot issue any e-ticket on his behalf under the current legal dispensation unless there are arrangements to deliver it to the offender on the spot. No such mechanism is presently available,” Justice Sheikh writes in his verdict.

He observes that the Act of the PSCA also does not licence it to issue e-tickets for any traffic violation. He says the authority cannot draw on the LHC order in the traders’ case because it merely suggested certain steps for developing a traffic management system for the Mall Road, Lahore.

Justice Sheikh explains that generally the offender is responsible for the offence himself but in certain situations the law may hold another person vicariously liable for it.

He maintains that a traffic offence entails personal liability and only the person who commits it can be penalised.

He rules that the buck cannot be passed to the owner of the vehicle unless he is the offender himself. He says the subsequent purchaser of a vehicle cannot be held liable in any eventuality.

“The current e-ticketing regime also infringes the principles relating to criminal liability,” the judge adds.

The judge also observes that the warning contained in the e-challan impounding the vehicle if the fine is not paid is patently illegal.

Allowing the petition, Justice Sheikh regrets that the government introduced the e-challan system without doing proper homework and providing the required legal framework.

“The Chief Secretary Punjab is directed to bring this lapse to the notice of the Chief Minister who shall take immediate steps to rectify the situation,” the judge concludes.

Published in Dawn, June 2nd, 2022