Central Notification Does Not Bar State from Setting Lower Speed Limits on Yamuna Expressway, Holds Allahabad HC

A Division Bench of the Allahabad High Court dismissed a writ petition challenging 60 km/h speed-limit e-challans on the Yamuna Expressway, holding that Section 112(2) of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 expressly empowers the State or an authorised authority to fix road-specific operational speed limits below the Central Government maximum.

The Allahabad High Court, in a judgment delivered on 17 July 2026, dismissed a civil writ petition filed by Shaheen Siddiqui and seven other operators of stage carriage buses plying the Agra–Noida route via the Yamuna Expressway. The petitioners had challenged overspeeding e-challans issued against their buses on the ground that the enforcement authorities were wrongly applying a 60 km/h speed limit, whereas the Central Government’s Notification dated 6 April 2018 — issued under Section 112 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 — prescribed a maximum of 100 km/h for access-controlled expressways. The Division Bench, comprising Justice Saral Srivastava and Justice Garima Prashad, found no merit in the petition and dismissed it without costs.

The Dispute Before the High Court

The petitioners operated stage carriage buses on the Kuberpur (Agra) to Noida Sector-37 route via Pari Chowk on the Yamuna Expressway. The respondent authorities — including traffic police, Respondent No. 9, and the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA), which manages the expressway as Respondent No. 2 — had enforced a speed limit of 60 km/h against the petitioners’ buses. E-challans recording violations at this limit were the subject of the challenge.

The petitioners sought four broad reliefs: quashing of the e-challans already issued; a direction restraining police authorities from enforcing a 60 km/h cap contrary to the 2018 Central Notification; a direction to enforce the Central Notification’s prescribed limits of 100 km/h for expressways with access control and 90 km/h for four-lane and above divided carriageways; and a prohibition on prosecutions under Section 183 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 where a vehicle’s detected speed fell within 5% of the Central Notification limit.

Senior Advocate Sameer Sharma, assisted by Ajay Kumar Srivastava, appeared for the petitioners. Standing Counsel appeared for the State, and Vinayak Nath Singh appeared for YEIDA.

The Legal Issue: Maximum vs. Operational Speed Limits

The central question was whether the Central Government’s 2018 Notification, prescribing maximum speeds for different classes of vehicles on different categories of roads, displaced the power of State authorities to set lower operational limits on a specific road or stretch.

The petitioners argued that once a maximum speed had been fixed by the Central Government under Section 112, the respondents had no authority to enforce a lower limit. They contended that the e-challans were therefore illegal and violated Articles 14 and 19(1)(g) of the Constitution.

The State countered that the fixation of operational speed limits on the Yamuna Expressway was a matter within the statutory powers of competent authorities under the Motor Vehicles Act, determined in coordination with the Traffic Police, taking road safety and technical considerations into account. Such decisions, the State submitted, involve policy and technical assessment and are not open to interference in writ jurisdiction.

How the Bench Reasoned

The Division Bench read Section 112 of the Motor Vehicles Act carefully and found it settled the issue against the petitioners. The provision contains two distinct parts. Sub-section (1) prohibits driving at a speed exceeding the maximum fixed for the vehicle under the Act or any other law in force, with a proviso that this maximum shall in no case exceed the ceiling set by the Central Government by notification. Sub-section (2) separately empowers the State Government or any authority it authorises to fix maximum or minimum speed limits for motor vehicles, any class of vehicles, or any particular road or area, by notification and by erecting appropriate traffic signs under Section 116.

The Court held that the proviso to Section 112(1) — which caps all speed limits at the Central Government maximum — does not extinguish the State’s power under Section 112(2) to prescribe lower operational limits for a particular road. The statutory scheme, the Bench reasoned, expressly recognises that different operational speed limits may be prescribed for particular roads or stretches by a competent authority. The 2018 Notification, therefore, “cannot be read to mean that every vehicle is entitled, as a matter of right, to travel at the maximum speed mentioned therein on every expressway.”

The Bench also pointed to a significant lacuna in the petitioners’ case. The e-challans on record showed a 60 km/h limit had been applied. Yet the petitioners had placed no notification or order of the competent authority prescribing that limit before the Court, nor had they challenged any such notification. Without the underlying order being on record or under challenge, the Court found it could not examine the validity of the limit itself.

On the question of what goes into fixing an operational speed limit, the Court observed that the determination was likely to involve the nature of the road, traffic density, visibility, seasonal fog, and other road safety considerations — matters of technical assessment that a writ court would not substitute with its own judgment.

The constitutional challenge under Articles 14 and 19(1)(g) was also rejected. The petitioners placed no material before the Court to establish hostile discrimination. Speed restrictions imposed within the statutory framework, the Bench held, are regulatory measures aimed at road safety and cannot by themselves be treated as an unreasonable restriction on the right to carry on business.

On the prayer for a blanket restraint on future e-challans, the Court held that the validity of each individual e-challan depends on its own facts, including the applicable speed restriction and the speed recorded by enforcement equipment. If any particular challan had been issued contrary to law, the statutory remedy under the Motor Vehicles Act remained open to the aggrieved person. A blanket pre-emptive direction was, accordingly, not grantable.

Outcome

The Division Bench dismissed Writ-C No. 20940 of 2026 on 17 July 2026, finding it devoid of merit. No order as to costs was made. The judgment was authored by Justice Garima Prashad and Justice Saral Srivastava.