The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday reserved its verdict challenging the powers of the Punjab Safe City Authority (PSCA) to issue e-challans to the motorists on violation of traffic rules.
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Earlier, Additional Advocate General Akhtar Javed argued before the court that the PSCA did not issue e-challan but assisted the traffic police in monitoring the violations by the motorists on roads.
He said the law authorized the traffic police personnel to issue a fine ticket in the name of the vehicle’s owner.
He asked the court to dismiss the petition.
After hearing the arguments, Justice Tariq Saleem Sheikh reserved the verdict.
Previously, a counsel for the petitioner, Falak Sher, pleaded that the PSCA could only use its cameras to check speed of the vehicles plying on roads to use it as evidence for manual challans. He said the judicial magistrates concerned had the jurisdiction to impose fine or exonerate a motorist facing a charge after holding a summary trial.
He contended that the traffic police or the PSCA had no power to recover fines for e-challan from the vehicle owners. He pointed out that the authority had been issuing e-challans without a legal cover.
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He asked the court to set aside the act of the authority as unlawful and restrain it from recovering the fine amount from the motorists.
During the last hearings, the judge had questioned the legality of the e-challan issued to an owner of a vehicle on violation of traffic rules by its driver.
