A Chennai resident has moved Madras high court to restrain transport authorities from imposing penalty on vehicles without high security number plates till the government notifies authorised dealers and manufacturers for the same.
Admitting the plea, the first bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Vijaykumar Gangapurwala and justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy directed Tamil Nadu government to respond to the plea by March 26.
According to petitioner S Ayappan, on Nov 22, 2023, while he was driving his vehicle to work, he was stopped by a police officer who imposed 500 as fine for not fixing a high security number plate in the vehicle as mandated by the Motor Vehicles Act.
On further inquiry, he came to know that the Union government had made it mandatory for vehicles to have high security number plates and by default vehicles registered after April 1, 2019 are fitted with such number plates.
Subsequently, it was made mandatory for all the old and new vehicles. Through the notification, the Centre vested the state government with the right to appoint manufacturers and vendors of such number plates for vehicles registered within the state, he said.
The Centre also notified a list of such vendors from across the country from which the state can select and authorise the vendors. However, neither the state government nor the state transport department has so far, appointed vendors for supply of the number plates in the state, he alleged.
“On the one hand the state has not approved vendors for supply of number plates and on the other police officers impose fines on owners of vehicles without such number plates,” he said.
Therefore, he wanted the court to restrain the police from imposing fines till the state approves vendors for supply of such number plates in the state.
