New Delhi: The Supreme Court has upheld the validity of one of the provisions of the Kerala Motor Vehicles Rules on Thursday, which empowers the state transport authority to reject an application for permit replacement if the vehicle, sought to be granted the permit, is older than the one which is being replaced. The top court while staying the 2017 judgement of the division bench of the Kerala High Court, allowed the appeal of the state government and the Regional Transport Authority.
The division bench of the high court had held as illegal the Rule 174(2)(c) of the Kerala Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 which gives discretionary power to the Transport Authority to reject the application if the new vehicle proposed is older than the ones ought to be replaced. ‘The decision that we have arrived at is based on the interpretation of statutory provisions and the principles concerning the construction of subordinate legislation. As the judgement of the High Court is contrary to law, it is compelling and inevitable that we set aside the judgment and rule upon the correct position of law…, we set aside the judgment of the High Court …by holding that Rule 174 (2) (c) is intra vires the provisions of the Act and also Section 83 of the Motor Vehicles Act. The appeals are allowed’, said the bench comprising Justices K M Joseph and P S Narasimha.
The 33-page judgement, penned by Justice Narasimha, dealt with the enabling provision of the Motor Vehicles Act (MVA), 1988 and the subordinate impugned rule of Kerala Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 to decide whether the latter was ultra-vires to the provisions of the central legislation, MVA. The verdict examined the issue in the backdrop of the argument that the power concerning the prescription of the age limit of a motor vehicle is in the exclusive domain of the Central Government.
‘Section 83 is an enabling provision. It allows a permit holder to replace the vehicle covered under the transport permit. The right to replace the vehicle under a permit is subject to the permission of the Authority. The right, as well as the power to grant permission, are subject to the condition that the vehicle to be replaced is of the same nature’, the verdict said. ‘There is yet another aspect that can lend a certain amount of clarity to this position is that the vehicle which the Authority may not approve for replacement under section 83 of the MVA on the ground that it is older than the vehicle covered under the permit, can be used as a transport vehicle within the state’, it added.
The verdict noted that there is no prohibition for such a usage as the said vehicle may continue to be fit and within the age limit prescribed by the Central Government. The rigour of Rule 174 (2) (c) is only in the context of a subsisting transport permit and not as a condition for transport vehicles as such.
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The dispute arose when one Shaju approached the RTO in 2017 under section 83 of the MVA for grant of permission to replace the 38-Seater vehicle of the 2016 model, covered under his permit, with another 33-Seater vehicle of 2006 model for transport service on a route, Pattimattam-Kakkanad, in Kerala. Alleging inaction on the part of the Authority, the vehicle owner filed a case before a single judge bench of the high court which disposed of the matter directing the authority to consider the application on the ground of road-worthiness alone and without reference to the model of the vehicle.
Aggrieved by the Single Judge’s decision, the Authority preferred the intra-court appeal before the Division Bench of the High Court, which, on July 18, 2017, dismissed plea holding that Rule 174(2) (c) of the Kerala Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 goes beyond the provision of the MVA. When in the exercise of delegated authority, the subordinate authority i.e., the State, makes the rules, the rules have to be consistent with the Act. The Rules cannot override the Act or restrict the ambit of the Act. When the expression is a vehicle of the same nature, then if Rule l74(2)(c) restricts that an older vehicle cannot be brought in, it would be restricting the right conferred to a person by the provisions of the Act, the division bench had held. Surely such an exercise by a delegate cannot be permitted. Rules have to be consistent with the Act and not restricting or derogation thereto. Rules to that extent cannot thus be held to be consistent with the Act and would have to be held to be inoperative, the high court had said.
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