Supreme Court Suggests New Ways to Recover Unpaid Traffic Challans

The Supreme Court has called for concrete measures to improve the recovery of unpaid traffic e-challans and strengthen compliance with road-safety rules. The issue came up during proceedings on a long-running public interest litigation concerning road safety. The court was informed that states and Union Territories had issued e-challans worth around ₹45,000 crore, while approximately ₹25,000 crore had been recovered, leaving nearly ₹20,000 crore pending.

During the hearing, the bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K.V. Viswanathan suggested exploring whether unpaid traffic fines could be linked to electricity bills as a possible recovery mechanism. The court also discussed measures such as flagging vehicles with unpaid challans on the Parivahan portal, restricting ownership transfers and taking action against vehicles with persistent dues. These were suggestions made during the hearing to improve recovery and enforcement, rather than an immediate nationwide direction to disconnect electricity for unpaid traffic fines.