Staff Reporter
Guwahati: According to a communication from the Registrar (Judicial & IT) of Gauhati High Court to the Commissioner of Transport, the Court of the Civil Judge (Junior Division) No. 4-cum-JMFC, Kamrup (Metro), has been designated as the Virtual Court for the State of Assam, which shall deal with and dispose of cases relating to non-compounding offences under the Transport Department.
The communication dated June 5, 2026, further makes it clear that the virtual court has been integrated with the e-Challan system of the state Transport Department and has been made operational.
The information was revealed by the division bench of Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL/52/2024) with a linked case (PIL/46/2024). Both PILs have been listed for further consideration on August 13, 2026.
Earlier, vide a notification dated September 25, 2020, issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, certain amendments have been brought about in the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989. One of such amendments provides that if a challan is due beyond the time period specified in sub-rule 5, except in the case of the offences instituted for prosecution by the court, then applications with respect to the licences of the offender or registration of motor vehicles, as the case may be, mentioned in the challans shall not be processed by the licensing authority or the registering authority, except applications relating to permits, fitness and taxes of motor vehicles.
A motor vehicle to be plied on roads requires many other certifications, one important certificate being the Pollution Under Control Certificate (PUCC). It appears that the software developed by the NIC does not capture the PUCC certification. For this reason, a notification dated May 9, 2024, issued by the central Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MVL section), clarified that a PUCC certificate cannot be granted for vehicles with pending traffic fines.
To remove this lacuna, the state and the Union Territories were requested by the central government to implement the updated PUCC software with version 2.0 of the NIC at the earliest, as the amended rules do not proscribe issuance of the PUCC certificate during the pendency of the challan compliance. The State Transport Department could not issue PUCC for the primary reason of the deficiency in the software.
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