Ask for the official demand and the legal basis of the amount. An officer cannot replace that process with a private payment. Section 200 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 provides that the offences listed in it may be compounded, before or after the institution of prosecution, by such officers or authorities and for such amount as the State Government may specify by notification in the Official Gazette. The figure is the State's, not the officer's. Section 199B separately allows the fines and penalties in the Act to be revised annually by the Central Government by up to ten per cent by notification. Anybody quoting a discretionary number is quoting something the statute does not contain, and knowing that changes the tone of the conversation.
Keep the encounter inside the paper trail
- Ask for the challan to be issued. A challan is a record, and a record is what the whole problem is trying to avoid. Ask for it calmly and repeat the request once.
- Pay through the official route only. The Bengaluru Traffic Police and national e-challan systems generate a challan number and a receipt. Card or digital payment against a challan number leaves a trail that cash never does.
- Take the officer's name, buckle number, the time and the place. A note made on the spot carries weight that a recollection three days later does not.
- Do not hand over money. Beyond the principle, it exposes you personally for the reason set out below.
- Verify afterwards. Check the vehicle on the official portal within a day or two, confirm the challan exists in the amount you were told and is recorded as paid, and save the confirmation, because entries reappear at the time of a fitness certificate or a transfer, as our note on disputing an e-challan in Bengaluru explains.
What the law calls the demand
Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 punishes a public servant who obtains or accepts or attempts to obtain from any person an undue advantage with the intention to perform or cause performance of a public duty improperly or dishonestly, or to forbear such performance, or who obtains or accepts or attempts to obtain an undue advantage as a reward for improper or dishonest performance or forbearance. The punishment is imprisonment of not less than three years extending to seven years, and fine. Explanation 1 is important: the obtaining, accepting or attempting to obtain an undue advantage is itself an offence even if the public duty is not, or has not been, improperly performed. In other words the demand does not have to succeed.
Section 8(1) of the same Act punishes a person who gives or promises to give an undue advantage to another with intent to induce a public servant to perform a public duty improperly, or to reward him for improper performance, with imprisonment which may extend to seven years, or fine, or both. The first proviso says the section shall not apply where a person is compelled to give such undue advantage. The second proviso says the person so compelled shall report the matter to the law enforcement authority or investigating agency within seven days from the date of giving it. The protection therefore depends on the report, and on the report being made quickly. Seven days is short, and the clock runs from the day the money changed hands.
Where a complaint goes
- The Karnataka Lokayukta. Section 7 of the Karnataka Lokayukta Act, 1984 sets out the public servants whose actions the Lokayukta and an Upalokayukta may investigate on a complaint involving a grievance or an allegation. Section 9(1) provides that any person may make a complaint under the Act, and Section 9(2) requires every complaint to be in the form of a statement supported by an affidavit, in the prescribed form and manner. Prepare the affidavit properly: a complaint that fails on form is a complaint that never gets read.
- The police. Section 173 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 provides that every information relating to the commission of a cognizable offence, irrespective of the area where it was committed, may be given orally or by electronic communication to an officer in charge of a police station, that a copy of the information as recorded shall be given forthwith and free of cost to the informant, and that a person aggrieved by a refusal to record it may send the substance of the information to the Superintendent of Police.
- The department. A written complaint to the senior traffic officer for the jurisdiction, with the date, time, place, officer's particulars and vehicle number, creates a departmental record and often produces the quickest practical response.
What not to do
Do not pay and then complain in the hope that the payment will be treated as harmless: the exception in Section 8 depends on compulsion and on a report inside seven days, and neither is something to assume after the event. Do not obstruct either. Section 179(1) of the Motor Vehicles Act punishes wilful disobedience of a lawful direction or obstruction of a person discharging functions under the Act with a civil penalty which may extend to two thousand rupees where no other penalty is provided.
If the encounter escalates into a notice requiring you to appear before the police, our guide on what a police notice under the new criminal procedure means sets out what such a notice can and cannot require. If the vehicle is detained during the exchange, remember that Section 207 confines detention to contraventions of the licence, minimum age, registration and permit requirements, and the recovery route is in our note on getting a seized vehicle released in Karnataka.