Motorists must carry original driving licences from Sep 6
Posted on: 04/Sep/2017 4:58:38 PM
The Chennai High Court has ordered that it is mandatory for all vehicle drivers to keep their original driving licences while driving from Wednesday, 6th September.
Earlier, the Tamil Nadu State Government had ordered that the vehicle drivers must keep the original driving licences while driving from 1st September.
However, a petition was raised against this order by the President of the Lorry Owners’ Association, Mr R. Sukumar, from Chennai Kolathur to the Chennai High Court. He had claimed in the petition that this new order will only pave the way for more corruption and malpractices. It will also very likely create a lot of confusion among the public.
This petition came up for enquiry conducted by the judge M. Duraisamy on last Friday. The judge cited that there is a Motor Vehicles Act – Law 139, which clearly states that it is not mandatory for the vehicle owners to keep their original driving licence – in this background, how the state government of Tamil Nadu has issued this order.
The Chief Advocate representing the state government of Tamil Nadu claimed that it is mandatory for the vehicle drivers to keep their original driving licences while driving. Tamil Nadu is in the 2nd place in the list of states with the maximum number of road accidents in the country. Many of the vehicle drivers use fake driving licences. In order to prevent this, this order was released.
The High Court had only recently removed the ban on the conversion of the driving licences into smart cards. So, the state government will not implement this order until 5th September.
In this situation, the verdict was given by the Chennai High Court today (Monday, 4th September) that it is mandatory for all vehicle drivers to keep their original driving licences while driving. It has further informed that if the driver does not possess the original driving licence, imprisonment for 3 months and/or a fine of Rs. 500 will be imposed.
