Two provisions do the work here, and the money demanded at the yard usually mixes them together. Separating them is the whole of the exercise, because one of them is a penalty for an offence and the other is a charge for a service, and they are governed and challenged differently.
The power to tow
Section 127 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 deals with vehicles abandoned or left unattended on a public place. Sub-section (1) provides that where a motor vehicle is abandoned or left unattended on a public place for ten hours or more, or is parked in a place where parking is legally prohibited, its removal by a towing service or its immobilisation by any means including wheel clamping may be authorised by a police officer in uniform having jurisdiction. Sub-section (2) covers the abandoned, unattended, wrecked, burnt or partially dismantled vehicle creating a traffic hazard by its position or causing an impediment by its physical appearance, and permits immediate removal. Sub-section (3) is the one that answers the question directly: where a vehicle is authorised to be removed under either sub-section, the owner of the vehicle shall be responsible for all towing costs, besides any other penalty.
Read that last clause carefully. The Act itself contemplates two separate amounts, the towing costs and the penalty, and it puts the towing costs on the owner rather than on whoever happened to be driving.
The penalty for obstruction
Section 201 penalises keeping a vehicle on a public place in such a manner as to cause an impediment to the free flow of traffic, and fixes the penalty at up to five hundred rupees, so long as the vehicle remains in that position. Three qualifications in the section are worth knowing. A vehicle involved in an accident is liable for the penalty only from the time the inspection formalities under the law are complete. The section does not apply where the vehicle has suffered an unforeseen breakdown and is in the process of being removed. And where the vehicle is removed by an agency authorised by the Central or State Government, removal charges are recoverable from the owner or the person in charge, to be recovered by such officer or authority as the State Government authorises by notification.
The Explanation defines removal charges to include the costs of moving the vehicle from one location to another and the costs of storing it. So storage at the yard is a recognised head, and a bill that grows with each day the vehicle sits there is not, by itself, irregular.
Ask for a receipt that shows the penalty and the removal charges as separate heads, states the section under which each is taken, and names the authority recovering the removal charge. The penalty is capped by the Act. The removal charge is a State-notified rate and varies by vehicle class. The reliable source for the number is the current Karnataka notification and the receipt itself, not a figure quoted online or repeated at the yard, and no advocate should hand you an amount from memory either.
Before you drive away
- Photograph the vehicle at the yard before it moves, from four sides, with the bumpers, sills, alloys and underbody visible. Towing damage is real and it is disputed the moment you leave.
- Ask under which sub-section the removal was authorised, and by which officer. A removal for a genuine traffic hazard and a removal from a no parking bay are different things on the record.
- Take the receipt for every rupee, in the name of the registered owner, with the challan or reference number on it.
- Check whether a challan has also been generated against the registration number, because the parking offence and the removal are separate entries. Our note on disputing an e-challan in Bengaluru sets out how to check and how to object.
- Keep the receipt. It is the only proof that the removal charge was demanded and paid, and it is what a complaint is later built on.
When the position is worth disputing
Three situations come up repeatedly. The first is where parking was not in fact prohibited at that spot, which is a question of what signage or marking existed on the day, and photographs of the location taken as soon as you get there settle it. The second is where the vehicle had broken down and was in the process of being removed, which the obstruction provision expressly excludes. The third is where the vehicle was involved in an accident and the penalty is being counted from a time before the inspection formalities were completed, which the proviso does not permit.
Who tows in Bengaluru, and under what contractual arrangement, is settled administratively and has changed more than once. That is a reason to ask at the yard which authority is recovering the money and under which notification, rather than a reason to assume the demand is unlawful.
Finally, keep towing distinct from seizure. A towed vehicle is released on payment. A vehicle seized under Section 207 of the Motor Vehicles Act, or taken in a criminal case, is a different problem with different forums, and the routes are set out in our note on getting a seized vehicle released in Karnataka. Applying to the wrong forum is how people lose months.