rulesMumbai, Nov 14 (PTI) The Bombay High Court today rappedthe Maharashtra government, saying it should stop making amockery of court orders and decide whether it wanted tostrictly implement the Motor Vehicles Act provisionspertaining to fitness certificates of vehicles.
A division bench of justices A S Oka and A K Menon saidit had passed several orders in the past in a public interestlitigation raising the issue of non-compliance of rules by theRegional Transport Offices (RTOs) while issuing fitnesscertificates for vehicles or renewing the same.
"We have been passing orders asking the government totake the rules for fitness checks of vehicles seriously but invain. The government seems to be taking it very lightly andcasually. This amounts to a mockery of our orders," the highcourt said.
It was time the Maharashtra government took a decision onwhether it proposed to strictly implement provisions of theMotor Vehicles Act pertaining to fitness certificates and stopmaking a mockery of court orders, the court said.
The bench was today informed by the petitioner, ShrikanthKarve, that an officer posted at a border post in Solapur wascoming to the RTO in Pune and issuing fitness certificateswithout any authority.
"He charges Rs 5,000 per vehicle. This is being going onsince May this year," the petitioner alleged.
"Has any senior officer looked into the records of thePune RTO? How can a random person barge into a RTO office andunauthorisedly check vehicles and grant them fitnesscertificates? This has been going on since May this year," thecourt said.
"The vehicles that this person has checked and grantedfitness certificates to...are these vehicles still plying onthe roads? What if tomorrow there is an accident and lives arelost? Who will be held responsible?" Justice Oka said.
The court asked the senior most officer of the statetransport department to look into the matter and file a reporton November 16. PTI SP NRBAAR.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.