Nagpur: Even as Nagpur mourns the deaths of 14-year-old student Sanvi Devendra Khobragade and van driver Ritik Ghanshyam Kanojia in the horrific September 12 Mankapur flyover crash, a glaring question hangs heavy: Why has the Regional Transport Office (RTO) been let off the hook?
Mankapur Police have registered serious offences against a host of individuals and agencies. The booked include school bus driver Vijay Hemantrao More (38) for rash and dangerous driving; van owner Rajesh Yadav for allowing unsafe operation of the vehicle; transport in-charge of Bhavan’s School for negligence in student safety arrangements; Oriental Nagpur Betul Highway Ltd, Khambhara, Distt Pandhurna (MP) for failing to install traffic safety signs, proper road dividers and direction guards; local site in-charge Rao and other responsible company staff for not following road safety norms and conditions. The deceased van driver has also been named in the FIR for rash driving.
Gold Rate
13 Sept 2025
Shockingly, not a single RTO officer finds mention in the FIR, despite overwhelming evidence of their culpability.
The case has been registered under Sections 281, 106(1), 125, 125(A), 125(B), 223 BNS and Sections 194(A), 50, 39, 192(1) MVA, covering offences of rash driving, negligence, lack of road safety measures and violation of terms and conditions.
The ill-fated Tata Magic van had been plying illegally since 2019 without a fitness certificate, permit, or insurance. It lacked even the most basic safety equipment, no speed governor, no fire extinguisher, not even working headlamps. Multiple challans had flagged these violations, yet the van continued to ferry children every single day. This was not oversight, it was blatant dereliction of duty by the RTO, whose very job is to keep such death traps off the road.
Former RTOs themselves have condemned the department’s collapse. Sarjerao Shelke, ex-city RTO, said bluntly: “When I was RTO, we carried out intensive drives despite staff shortages. Today there is no manpower issue, yet enforcement is dead. This is not limited to Nagpur, it is systemic failure across Maharashtra.”
Sharad Jichkar, another former RTO, was even sharper: “This tragedy is a direct result of administrative negligence. Vehicles without fitness and permit must be permanently seized. Letting such vans slip back on the road is criminal laxity. Both the RTO and police failed in enforcement, officers must be held accountable, or these tragedies will never stop.”
The present Nagpur RTO office has five enforcement teams, two flying squads and three interceptor units, a total of 10 officers with vehicles, manpower, and legal authority. Yet, insiders admit these teams are rarely deployed within city limits. Instead, they are diverted to lucrative check-posts, while unsafe school vans and buses roam unchecked. One officer revealed, “Interceptor staff once did surprise checks in the city. Now they sit at check-posts. Violations inside Nagpur go completely unnoticed.”
The exclusion of RTO officials from the FIR has left parents, citizens, and experts fuming. If bus drivers, van owners, schools, and contractors can be booked, why not the enforcement body that allowed an unfit, illegal van to operate for four long years?
Until RTO officers are made criminally liable for such willful neglect, experts warn, Nagpur’s roads will remain graveyards in disguise, and schoolchildren will continue paying with their lives.
