CHENNAI: Reflective, light reducing display stickers, including advertisement stickers, which are in violation of Rule 100 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, should not be permitted on the window panel of all motor vehicles, the Madras High Court ruled on Monday.
A division bench comprising justices S J Mukhopadhaya and R Sudhakar, which gave the ruling on a public interest writ petition from Coimbatore Consumer Cause, directed the Home Secretary, the Transport Secretary and the police department to issue suitable directions to all the law enforcing authorities under their control to implement the direction and the provisions of the TN Motor Vehicle Rules and the Central Motor Vehicles Rules strictly.
The Bench issued guidelines that are to be followed by the State in public interest. There should be no advertisements in the front windscreen or rear window or side windows of the vehicles since this would be in contravention of the norms.
Advertisements might be allowed inside the vehicle and rear portion of the exterior body of the buses as already provided under Rule 343(A) of the TN Rules.
Permission to display advertisements on the exterior side might be considered on body panel sheets.
If there were glass panels above the windows on the sides of the vehicles, display of advertisements on such panels might also be considered.
To operationalise this new provision, Rule 343 of the TN Rules needs to be amended.
The Transport Corporation/bus operators should get proper permission from the Regional Transport Authority (RTA) as per Rule 343 of the TN Rules. The RTAs should ensure that advertisements were not offensive, obscene and were not a cause for major distraction to the other road users.
All advertisements that are not in confirmity with these guidelines should be removed by the operators.
In case of continued violation, the permits of the operators might be suspended, the bench said.