The Supreme Court has recently received a demonstration of a web-based portal developed under the aegis of the Ministry of Roads, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to streamlline data of Motor Vehicle Accidents and Claims sought under the Act.
The Division Bench of Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice MM Sundresh had flagged the issue of the use of AI in this process, which the Committee took into consideration and is now a work-i-progress.
In an advanced suggestion to the features of the web-portal, the Court asked Counsels that apart from taking care of the future and ensuring that matters, instead of going to the Courts, can instead be resolved inter se the parties, so that they are able to see the immediate benefits and more so, in the context of legal principles having been set down is something which needs to be explored further.
A large part of the task is now a mathematical formulation and the variables are only the income of the deceased/affected and the factum of the accident, the Court commented.
The salient features of the Act, as described in the order are:
i) For the digitalization of DAR, the portal would subsequently emerge as “e-DAR” which would have integration of all the forms, including the ‘Comprehensive Information Form’ and Integrated 6 Road Accident Database (iRAD). From iRAD applications more than 90% of the datasets are pushed directly to the e-DAR and the respective stakeholders like Police, Road Authorities, Hospitals etc. are required to enter very minimal information for the E-DAR forms. Thus, e-DAR will be an extension and e-version of iRAD.
ii) There will be multiple checks in the e-DAR portal to restrict fake claims linking the check with FIR No., vehicles involved in the accident, the date of accident and the portal would be interlinked with other Government portals i.e, Sarthi and Vaahan giving access to information with respect to licence of the drivers as well as the registration of the vehicle.
iii) The total of 19 forms are provided for various stakeholders and a PAN India Single ‘Comprehensive Information Form’ generated electronically will provide all the relevant information.
iv) The Geo tagging of exact accident spot along with site map will be done, which would also notify the Investigating Officer about his distance from the spot of the incidence in the event the portal is accessed from any other location and in case the Investigating Officer for some reason does not reach the spot, the Geo tagging feature will also 7 reflect the same.
v) The upholding of documents i.e, photos; video of accident spot; damaged vehicles, injured victims, eye-witnesses etc. would be uploaded immediately in the absence of internet facility on the mobile phone.
vi) The analysis of output will be done through Monitoring & Reporting Dashboard & Analytics Dashboard for easy understanding and accordingly forecasting & Decision Making by Apex Authorities for formulation of new polices and strategies. vi) Apart from the state police, an engineer from the Public Works Department or the local body will receive an alert on his mobile device and the concerned official will then visit the accident site, to examine it, and feed the required details, such as the road design. Hotspots for accidents would also be identified so as to obtain solutions to avoid accidents at these hotspots.
The report suggested that data with respect to motor accidents for 24 States is already been uploaded and the GIC and that there may not be a requirement of a mobile application in view of the web portal being developed and used.
The Court was also concerned about the issue of pending matters before the Courts and the need for mediation for the same and therefore asked the Counsel for the Insurance Companies to see as to which of their cases are amenable to immediate settlements and after making the list may inform the respective High Courts which can then hold lok adalats/mediations to resolve at least those cases as in number of States the MACT cases are the highest single category of pendency.
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