Silencers
In 2025, police seized 440 modified silencers. The traffic police have also made a WhatsApp helpline, ‘Traffic Mitra’, available at 8976897698 for citizens to report violations.
The police said they had acted against vehicles fitted with unauthorised modified silencers, particularly motorcycles such as Bullets, as well as vehicles using horns continuously, unnecessarily or at excessive volume. A division bench comprising Justices Urmila Joshi-Phalke and Nivedita Mehta was hearing a public interest litigation filed by Bhupendra Wasnik, along with petitions taken up suo motu by the court on the issue. The court’s observations came after traffic police submitted an affidavit detailing enforcement measures undertaken over the past two-and-a-half years. These were removed with the assistance of mechanics, where necessary, and the vehicles were restored to their original configuration. The seized silencers were subsequently destroyed to prevent their reuse, the police informed the court. The court, however, indicated that the scale of enforcement should not be measured merely by the number of cases or the amount collected. It stressed the need to examine measures that could prevent vehicles from repeatedly creating excessive noise, rather than relying primarily on penalties after violations occur. In previous hearings, the court also widened the scope of the PIL to include noise pollution generated at construction sites. The petitioner’s lawyer sought details of the statutory framework governing construction noise, including permissible working hours and applicable regulatory safeguards. The bench directed the state government to place before it the relevant rules, guidelines and the mechanism in place for regulating noise pollution arising from construction activities.
Nagpur: Fines and enforcement alone cannot curb the persistent problem of noise pollution caused by vehicles, Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court observed on Tuesday, directing traffic police to come up with concrete and effective preventive measures to stop such violations.