Home Minister K J George has rewarded two traffic cops for a strange reason. The two men stopped the minister’s private car and made him pay fine for an old traffic violation involving his Audi.

Around 7.30 pm on December 7, George’s Audi stopped at the traffic signal at D’Souza junction in Ashoknagar traffic police limits. Assistant Sub-Inspector H R Srinivas and constable P Pawan were at the junction checking pending cases against vehicles. “We had checked around 40 vehicles for pending cases, when the Audi car stopped. We found on our BlackBerry that there was a case of wrong parking against the Audi,” Srinivas said.

“We told the driver about the violation and asked him to pay a fine of Rs 100, but the driver denied the violation initially. We showed him the record, but he was adamant. We told him to pay Rs 100 on the spot and collect the receipt as this would not cause any inconvenience later,” he added.

The driver looked towards George who was in the rear seat. The home minister gave the driver a Rs 100 note and told him to pay the fine. The ASI gave the driver the receipt and showed him the BlackBerry which indicated “no pending cases”. It was only then the cops allowed the car to move.

The next day, the home minister directed the police commissioner to ask the Ashok Nagar traffic police inspector to contact him. George directed the inspector to meet him at his chambers on Monday along with the ASI and a constable who were on duty at D’ Souza junction on December 7.

On being informed of the matter, a scared Srinivasa and Pawan told the inspector that they did not indulge in wrongdoing at the junction.  “On seeing both of us, the minister stood up, came to us and shook hands with us. We were further shocked as we could not make out why he shook hands with us. He congratulated us on being duty-minded and disclosed that the Audi we had stopped was his and he was the one who had paid the fine,” Srinivas said.

‘I was moving in my private car as I was on way to meet a friend. Hence, there was no escort,” George told Deccan Herald. “ I was happy to see the nice way in which the ASI and constable spoke to drivers at the junction. Their style of functioning made drivers pay the fine amount on the spot. Hence, I decided to honour them,” he said.