Traffic courts to be abolished from today

These pending traffic rule violation cases would now be taken up as regular matters by regular magisterial courts.

Court sources said the decision was taken in view of several complaints from some of the magistrates posted in the traffic courts for a long time.

The sources, most of them associated with the administrative function of the courts, said these magistrates had expressed their desire to be brought into the mainstream magisterial work and sought a change in their profile.

However, the official reason for the decision has been attributed to efforts to bring about more transparency in the judicial system and make traffic-related cases more litigant- friendly by shifting them to regular courts. All the traffic courts are located in the six districts courts of Delhi.

Registrar General of Delhi High Court, Dinesh Kumar Sharma said that Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal has decided to abolish these 13 courts to facilitate litigants and ease the rush due to which they were facing difficulties.

"Cases of traffic challans were concentrated in one court per district which was causing delay in disposal of cases.

"Now, these cases will proceed in regular magisterial courts as regular matters to ensure their early disposal," he said.

"The move is aimed at making the system more transparent and more efficient," Sharma said.

He added that the judicial officers of these traffic courts have been transferred to regular magisterial courts.

As per the official data available on the courts website, as on July 1, 2017, there are over 12000, 2200, 5500, 3900, 7300 cases pending in traffic courts of five districts-- Central, West, New Delhi, South and South East-- respectively.

The traffic challan cases of Central and West districts, which fell under Tis Hazari district court, would be assigned to four and three magistrates respectively.

Similarly, in Saket district court, the challan cases of South and South East districts will be distributed to four and seven magistrates respectively.

While four magistrates of Patiala House Court will try the challan cases of New Delhi district, six magistrates will do so in Dwarka district court for South West district.

The work of two abolished traffic courts in East and North East districts would be taken up by two and three magistrates respectively in Karkardooma district court.

In the Rohini district court, the cases would be distributed between five and six magistrates of North West and North Delhi district.