Check for challans before buying a used car

Hyderabad : Want to buy a pre-owned vehicle? Well, check with the cops whether there are any outstanding penalties on the vehicle for traffic violations before you buy it.

Otherwise, you will have to pay the penalty for no fault of yours. Hyderabad and Cyberabad police are advising the buyers of pre-owned vehicles to take a no-objection certificate from them so that they do not face the problem of paying challan for traffic violations committed by the previous owner.

Cyberabad Traffic DCP Avinash Mohanty advised the buyers of pre-owned vehicles to either seek an NOC from the traffic police or log onto the website of the traffic police to check if any challan was pending against the vehicle they are planning to buy before entering into any formal agreement.

'We issue traffic challans based on the address provided to us by the transport authorities. We are not concerned about the owner of the vehicle. It is the responsibility of the buyers to take necessary precautions before buying any vehicle' he said.

The DCP also urged the buyers to change the registration number of vehicles in their names to avoid any problem. However, several innocent pre-owned vehicle buyers are falling prey to the wrongdoings of previous owners who avoided paying challans.

In a recent incident, a resident of KPHB Colony, Viswanath fell victim. Viswanath bought a pre-owned car. A couple of days later, he received notice from Cyberabad Traffic Police stating his vehicle had 84 pending challans. He was asked to pay close to Rs.10,000 within 15 days by the cops.

The cops warned him that he would be produced before a magistrate if he failed to pay up the entire amount. Shell shocked, Viswanath immediately sprang into action and brought the issue to the notice of traffic cops.

On inquiry, he found that the challans were pending since 2008 and the owner of the vehicle did not bother to clear the entire amount. Viswanath immediately pulled up the seller of his car and made him cough up the entire penal amount. However, it took almost five days for him to clear the entire mess created by his nonchalant attitude.

As part of the novel drive, the Hyderabad and Cyberabad cops had already issued hundreds of notices to the traffic violators who had to more than 50 violations on their names.

'As part of the drive, we are focusing on the violators, who have more than 50 pending challans in their names. We have issued notices to all such violators. In Cyberabad alone, we have issued such 140 notices,' Cyberabad Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Avinash Mohanty said.

Mohanty further said those initiatives like integration of the e-challan system of the traffic department with the transport department is also underway to see that the registration of pre-owned vehicles was stopped till the clearance of the pending traffic challans.

'We have introduced PDA (Personal Digital Assistance) as part of our effective enforcement drive. The PDAs would help us to find out the entire history of traffic violations by a vehicle and allow us to issue the challan on the spot,' he said.