Madras High Court refrains from staying Tamil Nadu government’s move to roll out digital driving licences, RCs

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Madras High Court. File | Photo Credit: K. Pichumani

The Madras High Court on Friday (September 11, 2026) refrained from staying the Tamil Nadu government’s decision to transition the issuance of driving licences and motor vehicle registration certificates from physical to digital mode, with the aim of ensuring a corruption-free environment in Regional Transport Offices (RTOs).

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G. Arul Murugan accepted Advocate General (A-G) Vijay Narayan’s request to grant the government time to file detailed counter affidavits to three writ petitions filed against the transition and declined to grant any interim stay for the time being.

Force Identification Private Limited, a Bengaluru-based company engaged in the business of printing and supplying secure cards and providing identity and allied technology solutions to government and private organisations, and two others had filed the writ petitions challenging the transition.

Opposing their plea for an interim stay, the A-G said that the proposed system of issuing driving licences and motor vehicle registration certificates through electronic/digital mode was being introduced purely in the interest of the people at large and to avoid the necessity of approaching touts at RTOs.

Mr. Narayan said that the people would stand to benefit monetarily because of the digital issuance of the documents. The charges of around ₹250 that were being collected so far for printing and issuing the smart cards would be dispensed with henceforth, and the applicants need not pay that money.

People could easily store the digital driving licence and vehicle registration certificate on their mobile phones. If anyone wishes to have a physical copy, they could take a printout of the digital documents and laminate them too at any of the e-seva centres which had been established in every village, he added.

Unlike the smart cards that contain a microchip, the digital driving licences and vehicle registration certificates would come with QR codes. Traffic police personnel could scan those QR codes and enter all kinds of road traffic violations, and the entire history of violations could be viewed through this process, the A-G said.

The court was also told that six States, including Kerala, Assam, and Rajasthan, had already transitioned to the digital mode of issuing driving licences as well as vehicle registration certificates, and that Tamil Nadu was the seventh State in the country to make the transition.

Further, stating that the Motor Vehicle Act, 1988, as well as the statutory rules framed under it, permit such a transition, the A-G urged the court to grant time for the State government to file a detailed counter affidavit to the three writ petitions and not grant any interim stay till then.

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