A man in Odisha was fined for driving without wearing a helmet. The catch here is that he was driving a truck and not a motorised two-wheeler that mandates wearing the protective headgear.

The incident was reported from the state’s Ganjam district, reports ANI, adding that the driver was fined Rs 1000 for an offence that he did not commit.

According to reports in local media the truck driver, Pramod Kumar Swain, was in for a surprise when he  visited the Regional Transport Office (RTO) to renew the permit for his truck. He was told that there was a pending challan of Rs 1000 against him for ‘driving without a helmet’.

Swain got the permit only after he paid up the fine.

“I have been driving the truck for the past three years. It is engaged in water supply. I went to the RTO for renewal as my permit had expired. I came to know about the pending fine then, which was driving my truck without wearing a helmet,’ Swain said, according to India Today.

In 2019, soon after the new Motor Vehicles Act came into effect, a driver in Odisha was fined Rs 86, 500, among the highest in the country under the amended law. Sambalpur Regional Transport Office (RTO) issued the challan to a truck driver in Odisha.The picture of the challan had gone viral on social media.

According to reports, Ashok was fined for allowing an unauthorised person to drive (Rs 5,000), driving without a licence (Rs 5,000), overloading (Rs 56,000), carrying over dimension projections (Rs 20,000) and a general offence (Rs 500). The matter was later settled for Rs 70,000 after Ashok produced some papers