New Delhi: Intensifying its crackdown on rising transit hazards, the Supreme Court on Thursday questioned the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) over why it cannot deploy automated camera surveillance systems and dedicated monitoring rooms across toll plazas to combat rampant highway encroachments and stationary vehicles.

A bench comprising Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta raised the security and traffic concerns while hearing an ongoing suo motu case. The proceedings trace back to a devastating road tragedy in November last year in Rajasthan's Phalodi district, where a passenger tempo traveller crashed into a stationary trailer truck near Matoda village, claiming 15 lives.

Senior advocate ANS Nadkarni, assisting the apex court as an amicus curiae, underscored that the unlawful parking of heavy and commercial vehicles on active high-speed corridors remains a primary trigger for brutal highway collisions. Concurring with these observations, the bench noted that unmonitored roadside encroachments and stalled vehicles are choking national highways and turning transit routes into corridors of peril.

Defending the authority's current protocols, the counsel representing the NHAI argued that administrative circulars have already been issued to enforce regular physical inspections and mobile patrolling to deter unauthorized parking. Unimpressed by reliance solely on manual oversight, the bench pressed for technological intervention. "Why can't you think of having a camera surveillance system? You can have monitoring rooms at all toll plazas," the bench remarked.

During the proceedings, the apex court also expressed strong displeasure after noting that the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), and the Tamil Nadu government failed to submit their mandatory compliance affidavits. Granting a strict two-week window for both central ministries to file their official responses, the court directed the Tamil Nadu government to place its records before the bench prior to the next hearing.

The matter has been scheduled for further hearing on October 6. The current judicial scrutiny builds on comprehensive interim directives issued by the court earlier in April, which completely prohibited heavy vehicles from parking on highway carriageways or paved shoulders outside designated bays, banned unauthorized dhabas within right-of-way zones, and ordered the public mapping of critical accident blackspots.