[TusharK]

Advocate Mukesh Kulthia has filed a case in the Gurgaon court against government officials for banning 10 to 15-year-old cars.



A criminal case has been registered against Navdeep Sing Virk (IPS), Transport Secretary, Haryana and other IAS officers of the Union Transport Ministry in the conspiracy of ‘car bandi scam’.

Advocate Kulthia, who is the complainant in this case, has informed the court that as per the amended Motor Vehicles Act 2019, 2021 and 2021, the life of both diesel and petrol cars is 15 years, after which it is renewable for the next 5 years. Thus, a diesel car cannot be seized, confiscated or banned just because it has completed its 10-year life. Similarly, a petrol car cannot be banned just because it is 15 years old.

Kulthia said that it was a gross violation of the amended Motor Vehicles Act. Even today, registration certificates for diesel and petrol cars have a validity of 15 years. Road tax is also being charged for 15 years.

Kulthia argued that there was no legal ban on 10-year-old diesel and 15-year-old petrol vehicles and that these officials were imposing illegal restrictions by falsely citing NGT and Supreme Court orders. He claims that these restrictions are in violation of the amended law of the country and are being implemented through illegal tactics as part of a conspiracy to increase the sales of electric vehicles.

Source: Mukesh Kulthia

Link to Team-BHP news

[mayankk]

I fully support this guy. Full beans to him.
However, didn't the supreme court disallow any petitions challenging the NGT order, or its implementation?

[Revvatron]

Let's hope the court doesn't consider this as silly case and penalize the advocate for filing it.

[anilp]

Finally someone who took up this cause. Government has multiple ways to counter older polluting vehicles, but most of them involve stringent enforcement of the law in the form of periodic vehicle fitness checks, PUC certification requirements, catching offenders on the road, etc.

Instead of such enforcement, government chooses to punish even the people complying with the law using the name of other guilty parties. This has been mentioned multiple times in this forum itself, but just repeating it again. Such bans are nothing but a mockery of people's valuable spends on vehicles. It also spells a deathknell for all possiblities of having a proper classic vehicles scene in India.

While I'm still not sure of how much success this person will have, all power to his efforts.

[IamNikhil]

Going by the way the honourable black robes are behaving these days, expect this petition to be thrown out and costs imposed on the petitioner for filing "frivolous petitions, wasting precious time of the court", etc.

The courts have time to hold midnight sittings, tinker with listing schedule, grant immediate injunctions/anticipatory bail, etc for VIPs; while the common public is being taken for a ride and cases left to rot.

[Samarth 619]

I'm in full support of this gentleman advocate, I hope he isn't punished for it. There are multiple points for my answer, but let me just conclude by saying that, recycling is a scam, a threat to environment. The earlier two R's in the 3R's are still Reduce and Reuse, out of which we're legally or illegally outlawing reuse.

I admit the newer cars may be heavier and slower than their older counterparts due to environmental regulations, but we have to understand that not everyone is an enthusiast to understand these things.
So, in the vast extent of the market, there will always be more first hand buyers overall.

If some rare collector wants to own a car/bike from the past due to sentimental reasons or just as a car collector, he/she should be allowed.

[AJ56]

100% agreed, seizing private property is a gross violation of civil rights and that too due to laws made by unelected, quasi federal bodies (NGT). The lobbyists are in bed with the politicians to promote new car sales, all types not just electric.

Forcing people to buy new cars, with all the carbon emissions produced during manufacturing from the iron and steel production to painting to shipping every single part used in a car (shipped with diesel trucks no less), causes much more pollution than the net difference in emissions between a BS4 and BS6 vehicle. This law was never about the environment.

Not to mention, no other country I know of does this arbitrarily, if your car passes emissions, you’re allowed to drive it. To add, this law has been in place for almost a decade now and there has been zero improvement in air quality, it’s got worse in fact as cars aren’t even a fraction of the total contribution to net pollution in the first place.

[davelok]

Meanwhile, private transport vehicles are run blithely on kerosene, belching smoke everywhere. Many two-wheeler riders, mainly from rural areas, also resort to this to save on petrol cost.

As far as I know, people who use kerosene in this way were only caught if they used PDS (subsidised) kerosene, and not the free sale fuel. I've actually seen an auto-rickshaw driver fill his tank up from a free sale kerosene vendor outside a petrol pump, right in front of traffic policemen / RTO staff who were inspecting two-wheeler riders coming to the pump and penalising them for random 'offenses'.

These errant vehicle owners don't even get PUC certificates, which smell like a scam meant to enrich relatives of RTO officials anyway.

[Bhodrolok]

I can't imagine our lower courts allow such frivolous cases, I hope the HC penalizes the living day lights out of these publicity seeking clowns. A case against the transport secretary, what's the logic?!

[powertrain]

This is actually a good chance, especially for the Delhi-NCR car owners to unite & back this lawyer!

As automobile enthusiasts, we can actually help the guy with scientifically backed data that prove that banning 10-15 year old cars has no effect on the pollution levels. Wasn't there a study done on this?! I remember reading about it somewhere.

Th amount of energy spent & pollution caused to make new cars easily outweigh the cons of maintaining old cars.

Even a simple signature campaign, should help I guess.

The real question is - Are there Knights amongst us or is everyone a keyboard Warrior?!

Regards,
Powertrain

[AJ56]

Originally Posted by Bhodrolok

A case against the transport secretary, what's the logic?!

For allowing the unconstitutional seizure and ban of private property under false pretences.

[Bhodrolok]

Originally Posted by AJ56

For allowing the unconstitutional seizure and ban of private property under false pretences.

The officer is implementing an order, if a case had to be registered, it should be against the policy makers or in this case NGT which the SC has already backed. So this is nothing but a publicity exercise.

As a responsible automotive forum, I am really concerned by the lack of attention to automotive pollution especially in NCR with it's atrocious air quality situation.

[Night Raven]

I have always wondered why nobody has gone to court with this matter. I mean, if we have already paid taxes for 15 years our vehicles should be allowed to be used for 15 years isn’t it? Isn’t it logical that we should get a refund of the rest 5 year road tax and the interest on it also?

[madhukarmohan]

Originally Posted by TusharK

Advocate Mukesh Kulthia has filed a case in the Gurgaon court against government officials for banning 10 to 15-year-old cars.

Nice! This case should be taken up seriously by the court. If pollution is the main reason, then why a well maintained diesel/petrol car whose emission is under control and as per the pollution norms should be banned or phased out?

[revvharder]

Few years back when a PIL was filed for the same matter in the supreme court, the supreme court had told the advocates who had filed the PIL "That you are not the aggrieved party and hence the PIL is dismissed with cost of Rs. 8L" which later was made Rs. 0 but all the new outlets covered with their own angle which discouraged anyone for filing a PIL in the same matter.

Whenever the NGT ban is discussed on any of the car forum most of the members do think that it was somewhere automotive lobby at work for their own benefit and it seems the petition is filed along the same lines.