Section 177 of Motor Vehicle Act

Section 177 of the MV Act, 1988

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways released data in 2018, stating that Indian roads witnessed over 4.67 lakh accidents, which claimed the lives of over 1.5 lakh people. Due to the high population of the country and the density of vehicles in metropolitan cities and large towns, road accidents are a frequent occurrence. In order to combat accidents and violations, the Indian government introduced changes into various sections of the Motor Vehicles Act that came into effect from September 1, 2019.

One of the main sections of the MV Act is Section 177, which has general provisions for punishments for various traffic offences. As per the updated Motor Vehicles Act, 2019, Section 177 states:

“Whoever contravenes any provision of this act or of any rule, regulation or notification made thereunder shall, if no penalty is provided for the offence be punishable for the first offence with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees, and for any second or subsequent offence with fine which may extend to one thousand and five hundred rupees”.

Punishments Under Section 177 of the Motor Vehicles Act

As mentioned above, Section 177 lists out penalties for various traffic offences as well as their fines. Here is a look at the list of punishments and fines that fall under Section 177 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 2019:

It should also be noted that there is also a subsection of Section 177, called Section 177(A), which states:

“Penalty for contravention of regulations under Section 118-- Whoever contravenes the regulations made under Section 118 shall be punishable with a fine which shall not be less than five hundred rupees, but may extend to one thousand rupees”.

Traffic Offences Under Section 177

Section 177 does not cover any specific traffic violation. Instead, the section lists out punishments for traffic offences where no specific penalty has been established. The monetary fines under Section 177 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 2019 range from ₹500 for first-time offences to ₹1,500 for repeating the same offences.

As mentioned earlier, the traffic violations under Section 177 include offences like not following mandatory traffic signs or particular prescribed signals, allowing someone to obstruct your control of the vehicle, operating a driving school without a licence, etc. At the time of amendments made in the Motor Vehicles Act, the fines under Section 177 were increased from ₹100 and ₹300 to ₹500 and ₹1,500 respectively.

To Conclude

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