Seven years after a legal provision was introduced to hold road contractors, designers and road-owning agencies accountable for crashes caused by faulty road design, construction or maintenance that result in death or disability, no agency has yet been penalised under the provision.
Experts recently highlighted the issue at a conference examining the impact of the amendments made to the Motor Vehicles Act in 2019. They stressed the need for detailed and proper investigations into all serious road crashes, regardless of the type of road involved.
There have, however, been some instances in which road-owning agencies have been questioned by authorities or courts over failures linked to serious crashes.
Earlier this year, the government increased the maximum penalty for agencies found responsible in such cases by 50 times—from the earlier provision of a fine of up to ₹1 lakh to a penalty of up to ₹50 lakh, following amendments under the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Act.
Unlike fines, which are generally imposed by courts following legal proceedings, penalties can be imposed directly by administrative, regulatory or governing authorities for non-compliance, without requiring a court trial. The change could make it easier for government authorities to take action against agencies responsible for poor road design, construction or maintenance when these factors contribute to serious crashes.
Officials from state road-owning agencies have acknowledged that establishing a direct causal connection between an engineering defect and a crash remains one of the biggest challenges. In many cases, multiple factors contribute to a collision, making it difficult to determine the precise role played by road design or maintenance.
As a result, accountability has traditionally focused largely on drivers, while agencies responsible for planning, designing, constructing and maintaining roads have faced comparatively limited scrutiny.
The 2019 amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act require courts, while determining responsibility in such cases, to consider several factors. These include the road’s design, expected traffic levels, applicable maintenance standards, the condition in which road users could reasonably expect to find the road, whether the designated authority knew or should have known about a hazardous condition, and whether adequate warning signs had been provided.
