Noida bus driver fined for not wearing ‘Helmet’
Noida, Sep 20: The owner of a private bus here claimed that he had been issued a fine of Rs 500 allegedly because the driver was "not wearing a helmet".
Nirankar Singh said the online challan was made on September 11 and one of his employees checked it on Friday. Singh said he would be contesting the penalty in court if needed.
The city-based transporter said his son looks after the transport business and they have about 40-50 buses, which are engaged with schools and private companies in Noida and Greater Noida.
"My concern is that such a mistake reflects poorly on the Transport Department," Singh told PTI. "It raises questions on the working of such a responsible department and makes people wonder about the authenticity of other hundreds of challans being issued daily."
"I will be taking up the matter with officials concerned tomorrow and will approach the court of law if the need be," he added.
Officials, meanwhile, said the matter was being looked into and an error, if any, would be rectified.
"The challan was issued by an official of the Transport Department and not the Noida traffic police," the official added.
The same bus, according to officials, had been earlier penalised four times for seat-belt violation.
Singh contended that if it was a seat-belt offence then the challan should mention seat belt and not helmet. "If there is any error on our part, we will pay penalty for that, but it has to be genuine," he said.
The challan was issued under provisions of the new Motor Vehicles Act. Transporters in the National Capital Region had went on a strike on Thursday to protest the high rates of penalties under the amended law.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
