The police as well as Road Transport Officers must take stringent action in road accident cases and suspend the driving licences of the drivers involved after a due enquiry as contemplated under Section 19 (1)(c) of the Motor Vehicles Act, the Madras High Court Bench here has said.
Dismissing a writ appeal filed by a government bus driver against suspension of his driving licence, a Division Bench of Justice R. Banumathi and Justice B. Rajendran expressed their anguish that the officials, many a time, do not initiate stringent action leading to a spurt in the number of accidents.
The judges said that the practice world over was to suspend the driving licence of drivers involved in road accidents especially if they had led to the death of one or more individuals. But “we are pained” to see that such stringent action has not been not taken in our country in many cases, they added.
Writing the judgement for the Bench, Mr. Justice Rajendran doled out extensive statistics related to number of accidents that had taken place in the last few years and said that loss of life in accidents could not be seen as isolated incidents as many families are ruined due to the death of breadwinners.
In so far as the present case was concerned, the appellant S. Krishnan had filed the appeal in 2008 challenging the dismissal of his writ petition by a single judge who had refused to quash an order passed by the RTO (Madurai North) on September 2, 2008 suspending his driving licence.
According to the appellant, he was working as a driver with Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation. On September 12, 2008, he drove a bus between Anna bus stand and Palamedu. When the vehicle reached Iyer Bungalow, an aged woman fell down on the road from the front side steps of the bus.
Immediately, the woman was taken to a government hospital. But she died after seven days. Thereafter, the police registered a case against him under Section 304A (causing death by negligence) of the IPC and also seized his driving licence which was handed over to the RTO.
The RTO issued a show cause notice seeking explanation as to why the licence should not be suspended, conducted an enquiry and ultimately passed an order suspending it. But the petitioner claimed that the licence could not be suspended on mere registration of a case until it ended up in a conviction by a court of law. Rejecting the claim, the Division Bench said that that the RTO was empowered to suspend the driving licence on arriving at a subjective satisfaction that the holder had used a motor vehicle in the commission of a cognisable offence and there was no need for the officer to wait until conviction.
It also pointed out that the petitioner had the alternative remedy of challenging the RTO's order by filing a statutory appeal before the higher authorities rather than approaching the High Court .
