Ather is an electric scooter and does not need to possess PUC certificate, but still this incident took place
This is not the first time we have seen illogical challans and fines from Police department. All automobiles that are subjected to travel on roads, can be fined by Police as a part of enforcing laws. We get it. It’s their job and is much needed to keep road users in check. But when things like this pop-up, it begs the question of how enforcing should the enforcers be?
Ather 450X is currently in its 3rd gen avatar. It is one of the best premium electric scooters out there to be bought. It offers a reasonable range, good performance and is consistent. Icing on the cake is that it is also one of the safer electric scooters with no history of fire hazards. Now, one Ather user recently got fined for not possessing a PUC certificate. Yeah! It is bizarre. But it happened. Let’s take a look.
Ather Electric Scooter Owner Fined
An Ather Energy product is a fully electric scooter with no IC engine to combust hydrocarbons to cause pollution. That means it does not emit any gases. No Carbon Monoxide, no Carbon Dioxide, no NOX emissions and no carbon soot either.
PUC certificate means ‘Pollution Under Check’. Which is proof for ICE-powered vehicles that they are not emitting any pollutants over the permissible limit set for the class of vehicle that it lays in. This limit is set by concerned authorities in collaboration with various departments and boards.
Yet, an Ather 450X owner from Kerala has been fined Rs. 250 for not producing a PUC certificate when demanded. Offence committed according to the challan is, “Pollution Under Control Certificate (PUCC) not produced on demand”. Ather owner has been fined under Section 213(5)(e) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988.
Ather CEO Reacts
The photo has now gone viral on social media. When a twitter user tagged Ather CEO, he responded with a “Sigh”. Another user, Rohan Khare had an interesting reply – Similar incident happened with me a year ago when Ather was still not very popular in Mumbai. I replied with, “Show me the exhaust pipe on my scooter and then I will show you the PUC record that you require”. He went home without paying any fine.
This is not the first time that something hilarious like this has been done by the Police. There have been cases where a car driver has been fined for not wearing a helmet. A few weeks back, a guy in Kerala was fined for not having sufficient fuel in his motorcycle. This incident was later rectified by Kerala Police. They said that the fine was not for having low fuel, but for something else. Maybe the Ather electric scooter above is yet another case of being fined for incorrect reasons.
There is some confusion as to whether Policemen should be allowed to stop citizens for random checks for documentation. In Karnataka, senior Traffic Police official has instructed citizens to not stop for random checking of papers done by policemen, unless they have violated a law.
Source: Bike - rushlane.com
