[oilmonkey]

Hello,

I was driving through Goa to Karnataka on a roadtrip where I was stopped by an Traffic police officer for speeding the vehicle. I apologized to the officer then paid the fine and continued my trip.

Details of an incident that happened in Goa are as below:

Offence: S 183 - Driving at speed exceeding the maximum speed fixed for the motor vehicle (LMV) (183)

Scenario: Speed Limit was 60 Kmph and I was driving at 70/75 Kmph. This was the claim made by the traffic police officer as detected by a speed gun. (I was not shown any proof of this however I was travelling and did not want to waste time arguing so paid fine). The challan issue to me states that speed of the vehicle was 70/75 Kmph.

Date of Offence: 30 Jan 23

Fine: 1000

After the above incident, couple of days back while accessing mParivahan app I noticed that my license status is in 'BLOCKED' status. On checking the Parivahan website it shows remark for blocking and it states that license has been blocked as per letter received from Traffic Cell Margao which was sent on 31 Jan 23. However there is no notice, letter or SMS that was sent to me for this blocking. Further, this block was enforced on 7 Jun 23 which is five months after the incident. The physical driving license card was not seized by the officer he returned it to me after noting down the details for providing a challan.

I am aware I need to go to RTO and resolve this but I wanted to put this down here for guidance and awareness of everyone on this forum.

Someone who is aware of this can please guide on the process to unblock the license and why was it blocked in the first place? Is driving a car at 70/75 Kmph when speed limit is 60 Kmph such a big offence,

[Dodge_Viper]

Unfortunately there are no set rules defined or present anywhere for license suspension I believe. It is sadly at the will of traffic police. I was once stopped for breaking a signal (I didn't cross at red I was halfway through the junction when it turned red). The traffic police who stopped me saw my list of challans and said you have 5-6 challans against your vehicle I ll now suspend your licence for 6 months. I had to plead and bribe him to get out. Post that tried a lot to search for licence suspension rules but did not find any.


Guess you don't have any option apart from visiting RTO. But you can try visiting your local traffic police chowki first and check if they can revoke it.

[GTX+]

Originally Posted by oilmonkey

After the above incident, couple of days back while accessing mParivahan app I noticed that my license status is in 'BLOCKED' status.

Apologies for diverting a little bit. Few months back, while navigating the parivahan site, I came across the option to check license status. I entered my license number but got a message saying it is not in the database. I have an old small booklet styled license, issued from Noida RTO in 2008.

Is there a cutoff year for the license data that is fed into the parivahan database?

[condor]

Originally Posted by GTX+

I entered my license number but got a message saying it is not in the database. I have an old small booklet styled license, issued from Noida RTO in 2008.

Check if you can request for a card type DL.

I have had a card type DL which had that chip in it. Still, when I went for DL renewal about 3 years back, I was told that my DL is not in the database. My renewal thus had to go thru one more step of update in the database before it could be renewed.

Your issue does not look complicated

[The Rationalist]

Originally Posted by GTX+

Is there a cutoff year for the license data that is fed into the parivahan database?

Nope, it's just that some licences are not entered. Mine was 2002 one, couldn't apply for renewal online. Had to get help from RTO, then got the old book type was replaced with new one and then was able to view it in Digilocker.

[anjan_c2007]

You were booked for a petty traffic offence and were duly fined. You paid up. "Noone can be punished/fined for any civil or criminal wrong twice, for the same offence." This is taught to a law student as a beginner.

For grave traffic offences including drunk driving (second offence) the driving licence is suspended by the issuing RTO office upon recommendation by the traffic police. And the suspension is not for any indefinite period. It is usually three or six months.

You need to approach your local RTO office to check and verify the status and find out whether it has been really blocked. If not suspended, just go out for a long drive with your family or friends to celebrate.

And if it has been blocked, please send a representation by registered/speed post to the RTO citing your grievance, a copy of your licence and a screenshot of its status being shown as blocked. If no reasonable reply or action is taken till 30 days, please send them a legal notice through a good lawyer after which you can move the court for directions to the RTO.

[GTX+]

Originally Posted by condor

Check if you can request for a card type DL. Your issue does not look complicated

Originally Posted by The Rationalist

Nope, it's just that some licences are not entered. Mine was 2002 one, couldn't apply for renewal online. Had to get help from RTO, then got the old book type was replaced with new one and then was able to view it in Digilocker.

Thanks guys. Yes it is not a complicated issue. In fact the reason I was looking up was that I wanted to checkout how to get the card.

I will have to visit the RTO anyway as my DL was issued from Noida, whereas I now reside in Ghaziabad (don't have a Noida address proof anymore, apart from DL itself )

Is it a straight forward task to apply for a card or are there any complications for which it will be better off to get hold of an agent?

[thanixravindran]

Originally Posted by Dodge_Viper

Unfortunately there are no set rules defined or present anywhere for license suspension I believe. It is sadly at the will of traffic police. I was once stopped for breaking a signal (I didn't cross at red I was halfway through the junction when it turned red). The traffic police who stopped me saw my list of challans and said you have 5-6 challans against your vehicle I ll now suspend your licence for 6 months. I had to plead and bribe him to get out. Post that tried a lot to search for licence suspension rules but did not find any.

I don't think Traffic police have authority to suspend license. They can only recommend license suspension to RTO. Only the RTO have powers to suspend license.

You can appeal against suspension by approaching RTO. If appeal is lost, I guess you can appeal to State Transport Commissioner further.

[Quoter]

Originally Posted by GTX+

Apologies for diverting a little bit. Few months back, while navigating the parivahan site, I came across the option to check license status. I entered my license number but got a message saying it is not in the database. I have an old small booklet styled license, issued from Noida RTO in 2008.

Is there a cutoff year for the license data that is fed into the parivahan database?

Older driving licenses need to be digitised by the issuing RTO and each RTO has defined their own cutoff for this. In my RTO, licenses issued post 2007 were digitised and enrolled in Parivahan by default. For licenses issued prior to 2007, they were digitised only when the renewal application was filed.

[Guna]

Originally Posted by thanixravindran

I don't think Traffic police have authority to suspend license. They can only recommend license suspension to RTO. Only the RTO have powers to suspend license.

RTO would promptly oblige the recommendation by the traffic cops.
I once had my DL suspended for 3 months for wrong parking. I could only submit the request to reinstate the DL after the 3 months period.

[myavu]

Originally Posted by GTX+

Is it a straight forward task to apply for a card or are there any complications for which it will be better off to get hold of an agent?

We had gone through this and here is the solution.

My wife's DL got expired last December 28th. We were busy with BIL's wedding and completely forgot about the same.

Fast forward to September end 2023. One fine Sunday morning I had to literally rocket up from bed hearing a yell from wifey. "My license got expired " (She's not driving since early 2020 due to WFH and planning to resume it soon)

Now what? I told no problem, we will try vaahan portal. She approached me with her old book type license which was issued (from Keralam) when she was 19 years old. I decoded the DL number and entered it into vaahan and it returned error - No such no. in the database.

Immediately called my friend cum RTO agent in my home town. He asked me to download the required forms (wrt Kerala RTO - Eye Test Certificate and General Medical Fitness Certificate) and get it duly signed by Certified Ophthalmologist and Registered Medical Officer accordingly. We did the same from Delhi and couriered the docs and old DL along with few passport size photos to him.

Now the next challenge is to enter the old DL No. into Vaahan portal. For that we need her address proof and approach the issuing RTO office (in her case it was Perumbavoor RTO) All her address proofs are now Delhi based but they agreed to accept her SSLC Book which has the same DL address. Yesterday we got SMS from Vaahan that her DL is updated in the portal. Now the normal DL renewal process is going on.

Note: We can renew DL within one year from the expiry date.

[haribalram]

Originally Posted by GTX+

Thanks guys. Yes it is not a complicated issue. In fact the reason I was looking up was that I wanted to checkout how to get the card.

Is it a straight forward task to apply for a card or are there any complications for which it will be better off to get hold of an agent?

My long story short, for online renewal, I couldn't locate my DL through the Parivahan portal even though it showed up perfectly in Digilocker. My smartcard DL was re-issued in 2013.

Approached a driving school/agent who went to the RTO and found out it was linked to a different person . Perhaps, the internal RTO database allows search based only on DL number, unlike the public link that requires DOB & Name.

This requires a Backlog application to be filed to correct the situation. It took 2-3 days to get it rectified. Only then, he could apply for the renewal.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by oilmonkey

After the above incident, couple of days back while accessing mParivahan app I noticed that my license status is in 'BLOCKED'

Something similar happened with RC of a friend. While randomly they were checking in Parivahan, noticed that RC is locked due to non payment of speeding ticket at a different state.

They were not aware of the speeding ticket and had missed that. They made the payment online and in some 2 days the blocking was removed by itself.

You can either do that or send the proof of your earlier payment chalan to RTO office mentioned in Parivahan and get it removed.

Originally Posted by GTX+

Is there a cutoff year for the license data that is fed into the parivahan database?

It depends from state to state. For KL, it was around 2002 or so. When I renewed my year 2000 license, the same was not present in database. So had to first request addition of data to parivahan and once it was done, apply for renewal.

You can wait till your renewal comes up and do that or maybe get the database addition done earlier. Up to you.

[Toni]

Originally Posted by anjan_c2007

And if it has been blocked, please send a representation by registered/speed post to the RTO citing your grievance, a copy of your licence and a screenshot of its status being shown as blocked. If no reasonable reply or action is taken till 30 days, please send them a legal notice through a good lawyer after which you can move the court for directions to the RTO.

Yes this is the best and correct way to proceed further.

[setuniket]

I had old book style DL from Noida RTO. There is no cut off year, the RTO doesn't digitise old DL data. Once you go for DL renewal etc then Noida RTO is feeding old DL data in parivahan. Once your old DL shows up only then services are being provided.

I wanted to switch to card type DL for driving abroad, had to go through the process to re-issue the card type DL after updating data on parivahan.

Originally Posted by GTX+

Is there a cutoff year for the license data that is fed into the parivahan database?