Chapter XIII — Offences, Penalties And Procedure

Section 178Penalty for travelling without pass or ticket and for dereliction of duty on the part of conductor and refusal to ply contract carriage, etc

Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (Act 59 of 1988)

Text of the section

Penalty for travelling without pass or ticket and for dereliction of duty on the part of conductor and refusal to ply contract carriage, etc.—(1) Whoever travels in a stage carriage without having a proper pass or ticket with him or being in or having alighted from a stage carriage fails or refuses to present for examination or to deliver up his pass or ticket immediately on a requisition being made therefor, shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees. Explanation.—In this section, “pass” and “ticket” have the meanings respectively assigned to them in section 124. (2) If the conductor of a stage carriage, or the driver of a stage carriage performing the functions of a conductor in such stage carriage, whose duty is— (a) to supply a ticket to a person travelling in a stage carriage on payment of fare by such person, either wilfully or negligently,— (i) fails or refuses to accept the fare when tendered, or (ii) fails or refuses to supply a ticket, or (iii) supplies an invalid ticket, or (iv) supplies a ticket of a lesser value, or (b) to check any pass or ticket, either wilfully or negligently fails or refuses to do so, he shall be punishable with fine which may extend to five hundred rupees. (3) If the holder of a permit or the driver of a contract carriage refuses, in contravention of the provisions of this Act or rules made thereunder, to ply the contract carriage or to carry the passengers, he shall,— (a) in the case of two-wheeled or three-wheeled motor vehicles, be punishable with fine which may extend to fifty rupees; and (b) in any other case, be punishable with fine which may extend to two hundred rupees.

Reproduced from the India Code text of the Act. Bracketed superscript numerals are the official footnote markers for earlier amendments.

Amended by the 2019 Amendment Act

In section 178 of the principal Act, in sub-section (3), in clause (b), for the words “two hundred rupees”, the words “five hundred rupees” shall be substituted. 61.

This is the amending instruction from the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 (Act 32 of 2019), quoted verbatim. Read it together with the text above — the consolidated version is the section as it reads once these changes are applied.

Before you rely on this. The base text above is the Act as consolidated by the India Code, which predates the 2019 amendment; any 2019 change is shown separately rather than merged in. Later amendments may also apply. For anything official, read the current text on the e-Gazette or the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways site.

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