The Telangana High Court has firmly reasserted that traffic police lack the legal authority to seize or detain a vehicle merely on the ground that its driver was found in an intoxicated state, a ruling that carries immediate practical consequences for vehicle owners across the State who routinely find their cars held hostage at police stations in drunk-driving situations, often without any recourse.
The matter came to a head when Jangati Vijay, owner of a Mahindra XUV 500, approached the High Court after Alwal Traffic Police seized his vehicle on July 10, 2025, following an incident in which respondent Sai Ram Rao was allegedly found driving it in a drunken condition. The owner had nothing to do with the incident yet found himself without his vehicle. Police pushed back hard, pointing out that Sai Ram Rao had accumulated four drunk-driving cases, that challans had been raised against the same vehicle in three of them, and that neither the owner nor the driver had furnished the necessary documents since the seizure. The State went further, contending that the petitioner had effectively encouraged the offence by knowingly entrusting the vehicle to a habitual offender.
Justice E.V. Venugopal was unpersuaded by the State's position, finding the dispute squarely covered by a detailed set of guidelines already laid down by a coordinate bench in 2021. That earlier order had drawn a clear legal line: while an intoxicated person must absolutely be stopped from continuing to drive, that justification does not automatically extend to impounding the vehicle itself.
The Court reaffirmed the prescribed protocol, if a sober, licensed companion is present, they must be permitted to drive the vehicle away without any seizure, if no such person is available, the vehicle may be kept in temporary safe custody, but must be promptly released to the owner or any authorised individual upon production of the registration certificate, proof of identity, and a valid driving licence.
Applying that framework without hesitation, the court disposed of the petition with the direction, "There shall be no order as to costs."
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