NEW DELHI: If your vehicle is not insured, you may not be able to get fuel from petrol pumps in the near future. Supreme Court Tuesday suggested this as one of the measures to tackle the problem of uninsured vehicles plying on roads and also directed that cameras deployed on highways and roads be used to identify such vehicles and send challans to owners.Expressing shock that nearly 56% of vehicles plying on Indian roads remain uninsured (most of them two-wheelers), a bench of Justices Sanjay Karol and Prashant Kumar Mishra said the purpose behind mandatory insurance under Section 146 of the Motor Vehicles Act gets defeated, resulting in victims of road accidents being forced into prolonged litigation to get compensation. In absolute terms, the stark figure of uninsured vehicles stands at 16.5 crore vehicles out of a total of 30.4 crore registered vehicles. As per govt data, 22% of road accidents involve uninsured vehicles.As per the MV Act, those who drive or allow an uninsured vehicle to be driven without valid motor third-party insurance are liable to be punished, including imprisonment, for violation of the law. In the case of a first offence, the punishment is imprisonment for up to three months, or a fine of Rs 2,000 or both; and for a subsequent offence, imprisonment for up to three months, or a fine of Rs 4,000 or both are provided.“The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority, in consultation with the road transport ministry, to deliberate and evolve a pilot project whereby fuel for vehicles to be linked with valid insurance status. In the absence thereof, the vehicle concerned would be refused fuel at petrol pumps until such time valid insurance is obtained. The benefit therein is two-fold – first, it will assist in identification of uninsured or unregistered vehicles. Secondly, it will prompt the owners of these vehicles to ensure that they have valid insurance status. Such projects would ensure ground-level compliance with the statutory mandate of Section 146 of the MVA. This may be done through the use of cameras. The ministry of petroleum and natural gas, has in principle, no objection to the same,” the bench said.The bench said that there should be strict implementation of law and directed that state traffic police should be given handheld devices or downloadable apps, linked with the data from Insurance Information Bureau and VAHAN portal to verify insurance status on the ground. “ANPR cameras deployed on highways and roads are equipped with a mechanism to catch and penalise road safety violations such as high speed, red light jumping, driving on the wrong side of the road, etc. Carrying this forward and as already deployed by the MoRTH in certain states, ANPR cameras are to be integrated with data from the Insurance Information Bureau and the VAHAN portal for issuance of automatic e-challans to uninsured vehicles,” the bench said.
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The result of vehicles remaining uninsured is that accident victims and their families have no recourse to adequate compensation within a reasonable time period.In 2018, the apex court had directed mandatory buying of third-party insurance for three years for new cars and five years for two-wheelers at the time of buy/registration of new vehicles. Noting that a large number of vehicles remain uninsured, the bench increased the period by one year and directed that henceforth, a buyer has to buy third-party insurance for four years for new cars and six years for new two-wheelers.
