It's illegal to give a lift in India

A Mumbai resident, Nitin Nair, has been fined Rs. 1,500 after being caught giving a lift to unknown people.

Nitin says that on the morning of 18 June, he saw workers of an IT company desperately looking for a mode of transport to their offices. It was raining heavily and public transport was crowded and running late. Since he recognised the IT company, Nitin agreed to drop them once he found out that their destination was on the way to his office. One of them was an elderly person, who Nitin claims, was 60+ years old. The incident happened at Airoli circle and the office-goers were on their way to Gandhi Nagar.

As soon as he started the car, a traffic police officer stopped him and said that it was illegal to give a lift to unknown people. He also confiscated Nitin's license and gave him a receipt. He was asked to go to the police station the following day to pay the fine. Interestingly, the police officers never asked the passengers if they were paying for the ride.

The following day, at the police station, Nitin found out that he was being charged under Section 66/192. Under this section, it is illegal to give a lift to an unknown person in a private vehicle. To get his license back, he was told to attend a court session on the morning of 22 June. Nitin was made to accept his mistake after waiting for a while and had to pay a fine of Rs. 2,000. However, he managed to get a Rs. 500 rebate on the fine amount. After pleading guilty to the charge, he had to go back to the police station to collect his driver's license.

Section 66 pertains to the control of transport vehicles. Hence, he cannot be charged under this section if he was driving a white plate car. However, he can be charged for using his private car as a taxi if he was collecting money from the passengers.

Source: Facebook/ Nitin Nair