New number plates: Telangana, Andhra Pradesh to file affidavit soon
HYDERABAD: A division bench of the High Court on Tuesday directed Telangana and Andhra Pradesh governments to file affidavits explaining their stand on enforcement of the High Security Registration Plates (HSRP) scheme while registering motor vehicles in their respective states.
The bench, comprising acting chief justice Ramesh Ranganathan and justice A Shankar Narayana, was dealing with a PIL filed by one Swatantra Rai from Uttar Pradesh seeking directions to both the state governments and their transport departments to implement HSRP norms as laid down in Rule 50 of the Central Motor Rules 1989 and orders of the Supreme Court.
The petitioner’s counsel submitted that Rule 50 and the apex court’s order mandated the respondent authorities to fix new HSRPs to the vehicles that were registered prior to December 2, 2013 in a time-bound manner. In February 2012 the Supreme Court had directed all the state governments to implement the HSRP scheme for all the vehicles, including the vehicles registered prior to December 2, 2013. However, most of the states had not implemented it till date, he said..
The counsel further submitted that both the state governments authorised Link Autotech Pvt Ltd to implement HSRP in their states. He urged the court to direct the said company not to shun their responsibility to save themselves from unprofitable exercise of replacing the old registration plates with the new HSRP. The bench granted four weeks’ time to both the state governments to file their reply affidavits by the next date of hearing.