Head constables can't stop, fine commercial vehicles: New order

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

After enforcing road discipline among Delhiites, Delhi traffic police is now focusing on cleaning up its own department. To start with, traffic police have taken away the power from head constables to stop any commercial vehicle even if it violates traffic norms. This decision was taken after sev 

Several complaints of bribes being taken by head constables from commercial vehicles were received.Many of these complaints were also lodged on the social networking site Facebook.

Policemen accepting bribe from a commercial vehicle is a common sight at several intersections in the city including Punjabi Bagh circle, Azadpur Mandi and Badarpur border among other locations.

"There have been instances where traffic head constables stopped commercial vehicles for traffic violations and took bribe from them to let them off," said a senior traffic police officer.

Satyendra Garg, joint commissioner of police (traffic) on Tuesday issued the order in this respect.

He said: "No head constable or a constable, whether on motorcycle or at traffic intersections will stop any commercial vehicle for traffic violations. If they notice any violation, they can fill up the violation slip for the violation by the vehicle. Any violation of the order would invite serious disciplinary action," Garg said.

He clarified that only a zonal officer of the sub-inspector or inspector rank or an officer of the department can stop and prosecute a commercial vehicle.

A head constable can fine anybody for a violation that does not have a penalty of more than R100.

"Our motto is not depriving a head constable from policing rights but from getting bribe," he added.

Traffic department has a total of 1,338 head constables of who 600 are deployed in the chase-and-challan wing.

With this new order in force, traffic police has seized the right of head constables to even chase commercial vehicles and fine them.

Now the head constables' role will be restricted to penalising people for violations of stop line, red-light jumping, triple riding on two wheelers, driving two wheelers without helmets, improper parking and defective number plates of non-commercial vehicles among others.

Original news source http://www.hindustantimes.com/Head-constables-can-t-stop-fine-commercial-vehicles-New-order/Article1-681698.aspx