The Supreme Court on Saturday fired a warning shot at the Tamil Nadu Police, summoning DGP Thangam Thenmozhi to New Delhi on April 7, 2026, to explain why officers are not verifying insurance papers of accident victims.
**A 3-minute virtual hearing at 9:34 IST on Saturday** escalated what was a routine traffic matter into a constitutional show-cause notice, according to a Bar & Bench live update citing oral observations from Justices Sanjay Kumar and S. Ravindra Bhat.
That directive followed a **Public Interest Litigation filed by advocate S. Sridhar on March 22, 2026**, which cited an internal police circular (Crime Branch Notification No. CRB/2025/34) dated September 10, 2025, stating: *“Investigating Inspectors shall not delay FIR registration or compounding of offences purely on grounds of lack of insurance certificate.”*
But the Supreme Court found the circular **“palpably illegal”** and slated the DGP’s presence after the Tamil Nadu government, appearing through Additional Solicitor General Priya Puri, could not instantly rebut the charge.
Justice Bhat’s minutes-long remonstration pulled no punches. *“If police cannot verify insurance at the crime scene, how do accident victims claim ₹5 lakh from the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal?”* the bench asked, quoting the minimum compensation standard fixed by the apex court in **Swaran Singh v. State of Punjab (2008).**
And no one disputed the statistics Sridhar tabled: between January 2023 and December 2025, **14,789 hit-and-run cases** were registered in Tamil Nadu, but insurance companies settled only **9,247 claims**, leaving **5,542 victims without recourse** because police reports lacked coverage status.
Sridhar argued that **Chennai’s Mowlivakkam police station alone reported 891 accidents in 2025** where victims were denied compensation because investigating officers did not mention insurance particulars in the FIR.
Thenmozhi’s affidavit, filed on March 25, 2026, defended the circular as “administrative expediency,” but Justice Kumar snapped back: “Expediency cannot trump the statutory right of an injured ₹23 lakh accident victim from Coimbatore who awaits ₹15 lakh compensation.”
The DGP’s affidavit now faces stiff scrutiny. It claims **only 8% of crash victims** carry valid Third Party insurance, yet cites a study by the **Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (working paper 2025, p. 17)** that shows **78% of light motor vehicles in Tamil Nadu are under TI (Third Party) policies.**
That gap—**70 percentage points**—is the heart of the court’s suspicion.
There is calendared precedent for such intervention. In **2001 itself, the Supreme Court ruled in National Insurance v. Manjula** that police reports **must** note insurance details; non-compliance invalidates the claim.
Sridhar told reporters outside court that **Madras High Court had dismissed two PILs in 2024 (W.P. No. 12827 of 2024 and 11912 of 2024) on the ground of “no fundamental right violation,”** forcing the PIL writer to approach the Supreme Court directly.
The next hearing is set for **Tuesday, April 7, 2026, at 2:00 PM IST**. The court has directed the DGP to bring **three live case files**—the Coimbatore ₹23 lakh matter, a **Marina Beach tourist scooter case from March 5, 2026**, and **a city bus collision from March 12, 2026,** where uninsured drivers fled after merely ₹50,000 in hospital bills were levied against parked vehicles.
But the bench also floated a possible administrative solution: **mandatory e-FIR uploading with an auto-check system linked to the Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) database.**
Justice Bhat asked: “Why should millions of Indians wait for ₹5 lakh? Let IIB and police software talk to each other today, not next year.”
