CHENNAI: A PIL has been filed in the Madras High Court for a directive to the Centre to evolve and adopt a foolproof procedure within a stipulated time frame to enforce installation of sealed, tamper-proof speed governors of prescribed standard in motor vehicles, as mandated in Rule 118 of the Central Motor Vehicles Act.
The first Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar, before which the PIL from advocate V Kannan came up, ordered notices to the departments concerned of the State and Union governments, returnable in four weeks. The matter will be taken up on October 23.
According to the petitioner, during the first three months of this year, 4,148 people had lost their lives in accidents. The main reason was vehicles exceeding the prescribed speed limit. Rule 118 of Central Motor Vehicle Act stipulated that the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highway should compulsorily take steps to install speed governors in certain motor vehicles with effect from July 1, 1993. Another notification dated October 1, 2015 made installation of speed governors mandatory in every transport vehicle manufactured on or after the date. Though the authorities had enacted the law, it was not implemented at the ground level, the petitioner contended.