*THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE NOOTY RAMAMOHANA RAO W.P.No. 23980 of 2000 % 23-12-2010 Between: # B. Rama Krishna Reddy … petitioner And Deputy Transport Commissioner, Kadapa & another …Respondents ! COUNSEL FOR THE PETITONER: Mr.B. Chandra Sekhar ^ COUNSEL FOR RESPONDENT No.1: GP for Transport ^ COUNSEL FOR RESPONDENT No.2: GP for Prohibition & Excise < Gist: > Head Note: ? CITATIONS: THE HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE NOOTY RAMAMOHANA RAO W.P.No.23980 OF 2010 ORDER: This writ petition has been instituted calling in question the endorsement dated 14-09-2010, issued by the Registering Authority under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, declining to register the vehicle purchased by the writ petitioner by way of public auction conducted by the 2nd respondent herein. The facts which are relevant for our inquiry are; the 2nd respondent - Superintendent of Prohibition & Excise, Kadapa, has put to public auction a truck bearing registration No. T.N.09-AT-8474, on 29-07-2010. The writ petitioner was found to be the highest bidder thereat and his bid for Rs.3,70,000/- has been accepted. He has also paid a sum of Rs.53,650/- representing 14.5% towards Value Added Tax (VAT) on purchase of the said truck. On 03-09-2010, the writ petitioner submitted a representation enclosing thereto Form No.32 and all other documents including the sale certificate issued by the 2nd respondent and sought for registration of the said vehicle in his favour. Considering the said representation, the impugned endorsement has been issued on 14-09-2010, bringing out that the Commissioner of Transport, through his Circular Memorandum No.1388/VI/2009, dated 18-03- 2010, pointed out that whenever a motor vehicle is seized by the State Government or the Central Government and it is confiscated and later on proposed for auction, the said auctioning authority should contact the nearest registering authority and find out the genuineness of the vehicle and in case the vehicle is found to be a non-genuine one or a bogus one, the said vehicle should be sold by the auctioning authority as scrap only and that such vehicles shall not be registered by the registering authority. Hence, this writ petition came to be instituted. Heard Sri B. Chandrasekhar, the learned counsel for the writ petitioner, the learned Government Pleader for Transport and the learned Government Pleader for Prohibition & Excise. The learned counsel for the writ petitioner would submit that the 2nd respondent has conducted the auction, obviously, after taking the views of the registering authority into account and consideration and that it has issued a certificate vouching that the vehicle has been confiscated by the Excise Department and it is involved in an excise offence and hence, it is put to public auction. The learned counsel would further submit that, after thus acquiring the vehicle, the writ petitioner has spent considerable amount for bringing it to roadworthy condition and hence, the 1st respondent is liable to register the vehicle in his name after assessing its roadworthiness and the registering authority cannot decline to register the vehicle. The learned Government Pleader for Transport would submit that in terms of Section 52 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (henceforth referred to as ‘the Act’), no owner of a motor vehicle shall either alter or modify the engine or the chassis of a motor vehicle without obtaining prior permission from the registering authority and if it is found that any vehicle owner has changed \ modified its engine or chassis unauthorizedly, such vehicles cannot be allowed to be brought on roads and be allowed to ply. Further, the learned Government Pleader would contend that in the instant case, when the Deputy Commissioner of Transport, Kadapa, has ascertained from her counter parts of the Tamil Nadu State, it is revealed that the registration number T.N.09- AT-8474, in fact, belongs to a Honda motor cycle and it does not belong to any Ashok Leyland truck at all. Further, the Deputy Transport Commissioner has been informed that neither the engine number nor the chassis number of the truck in question are matching when compared with the data available with the Transport Department of the neighboring Tamil Nadu State. Therefore, the learned Government Pleader would contend that the truck in question is a bogus one, which is the result of tampering by its previous owner and thus, Section 52 of the Act, has been breached. Hence, the endorsement issued by the registering authority declining to register the same is perfectly valid and legitimate. It is appropriate to notice that Section 52 of the Act, as well as Rule 57 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, (for short ‘the Rules’) have a direct bearing upon the controversy involved in this case. Section 52 of the Act, dealt with all issues relevant to alterations to motor vehicles. Subsection (1) clearly mandates that no owner of a motor vehicle shall so alter the vehicle that the particulars contained in the certificate of registration are no longer accurate, unless he has given notice to the registering authority of the proposed alterations and obtained approval of that registering authority to effect such alterations. Subsection (3) of Section 52 enables the owners of not less than ten transport vehicles to alter any vehicle owned by them so as to replace the engine thereof, without the prior permission of the registering authority. Even in such cases, in terms of Subsection (4) of the said Section, the alterations so made were required to be reported to the registering authority and the registering authority was, correspondingly, required to make an entry of the details of the alterations so effected. However, a perusal of Section 52 clearly discloses that no owner of a motor vehicle should attempt to make alterations in such manner that the particulars furnished in the registration certificate would not be matching with the alterations. Alterations can be effected only after obtaining prior approval of the registering authority, but not otherwise. The only exception recognized was in favour of owners of not less than ten transport vehicles to effect any such alterations without obtaining the prior approval of the registering authority, but however, they shall intimate after paying the necessary fee to the registering authority of the alterations got made by them. What emerges from Section 52 of the Act, is that the State is required to ensure that the particulars entered once in the registration certification of a motor vehicle, shall not undergo any change at any later point of time without the knowledge of the registering authority. It is not difficult to conceive the necessity that might arise after the motor vehicle is registered once, to effect changes. The alterations or the changes could result in replacing of engine itself or the replacement of chassis of the said vehicle. But however, Section 52 required any such alterations to be effected only after obtaining prior approval of the registering authority by the rest of the vehicle owners other than those owners of ten transport vehicles. In other words, alterations to be effected to motor vehicles is not an act which is altogether forbidden. Such alterations can be undertaken only with the prior approval of the registering authority in normal cases. I am, therefore, convinced that Section 52 of the Act, does not come in the way of the respondents from registering a vehicle. However, it should also be appropriate to notice the import of Rule 57 of the Rules. Rule 57 dealt with the issues relating to transfer of ownership of vehicles purchased in public auction. Rule 57 reads as under: “57. Transfer of ownership of vehicle purchased in public auction.-(1) The person who has acquired or purchased a motor vehicle at a public auction conducted by or on behalf of the Central Government or a State Government shall make an application in Form 32 within thirty days of taking possession of the vehicle to the registering authority accompanied by – (a) the appropriate fee as specified in Rule 81; (b) the certificates of registration and insurance; (c) the certificate or order confirming the sale of the vehicle in his favour duly signed by the person authorized to conduct the auction; and (d) the certified copy of the order of the Central Government or State Government authorizing the auction of the vehicle. (2) Where the vehicle auctioned is a vehicle without any registration mark, or with a registration mark which on verification is found to be false, the registering authority shall, subject to the provisions of Section 44, assign a new registration mark to the vehicle in the name of the Department of the Central Government or State Government auctioning the vehicle and thereafter record the entries of transfer of ownership of the vehicle giving the name and address of the person to whom the vehicle is sold.” The Statute has recognized that the State might confiscate motor vehicles involved in various offences committed under the Excise Act or the Forest Act, or the like and that such confiscated vehicles will be put to auction by the respective Governments. What Rule 57 requires is the person, who purchased a motor vehicle in such public auction conducted by the Central Government or the State Government, as the case may be, to make an application in Form 32 within thirty days of taking possession of the said vehicle. The application in Form 32 must accompany the certificates of registration and insurance and the certificate or Order confirming the sale of vehicle in his favour and that the State Government or the Central Government has, in fact, authorized the auction of the said vehicle. The later requirements, namely, certificate or confirmation of sale of the vehicle in favour of the person applying in Form 32 and a certificate that the State Government or the Central Government, as the case may be, has authorized the auction to be conducted, are essentially needed to prevent unauthorized registration of motor vehicles, which were once seized by the State Government or the Central Government, as the case may be. But however, if a vehicle, which is seized once and later on confiscated by the State Government, appears to be a bogus vehicle, in the sense that it does not bear the valid registration certificate from any of the registering authorities issued under the Act, such a situation is, in fact, dealt with under Subrule (2) thereof. Various contingencies have been conceived and contemplated therein. The vehicle may bear a false registration mark or it may not bear any such registration mark, but in both the cases, the registering authority, in terms of Section 44 of the Act, has to assign a new registration mark to the said vehicle, first in the name of the Department, which had conducted the public auction and later on effect the change of transfer of ownership of the said vehicle incorporating the name and address of the person to whom the vehicle is sold. Subrule (2) of Rule 57, to my mind, is specific and categoric in providing answers to the questions of the nature raised in this writ petition. Offenders, who use motor vehicles for commissioning various forbidden and prohibited acts, may resort to various varieties of methods to ensure that the real culprit will not get entangled later on. One of the well-known modes adopted are, to allow the motor vehicles involved in offences to carry registration numbers, which are non-genuine. The motor vehicle will apparently carry a registration number of some other vehicle or it may not even carry any registration number. In such cases, the true ownership of the vehicle becomes difficult to be traced. That would be a different question with which the agency, which was to prosecute the offender, has to deal with. So far as the motor vehicle registering authorities are concerned, Subrule (2) of Rule 57 enables them to recognize, at the first instance, the State acting through one department or the other, which has seized and confiscated such a vehicle, to become the true owner. Therefore, Subrule (2) of Rule 57 requires every registering authority of motor vehicles to recognize the auctioning department to become the owner of such a vehicle at the first instance and then record a transfer of ownership in favour of the auction purchaser as certified by them. By doing so, for the very first time, the particulars of the engine number and chassis number get combined to form into a composite motor vehicle whose particulars get entered in the registration certificate now to be issued in favour of the State. As was noticed supra, in the instant case, the vehicle in question has been initially seized by the State Excise Department, which was subsequently confiscated to the State. It is altogether a different matter that the State Excise officials may have failed to investigate properly to trace out the true owner of the said vehicle. But however, that fact does not detract us from recognizing the fact that the physical custody and possession of the confiscated vehicle was lying with the 2nd respondent Excise Department. Since, it was required to sell such vehicles by way of public auction, the 2nd respondent has conducted public auction after obtaining the necessary approval from the State Government. If a motor vehicle is sold, as such, in public auction, it can perhaps fetch as nearer a realistic value as such a vehicle can at best fetch. On the other hand, as suggested by the Transport Commissioner, if such vehicles were to be sold as mere scrap, then, they may not fetch equivalent money value to the State. In such an event, the State would be the ultimate loser. If one were to sell a motor vehicle capable to be used on the roads it would, probably, be fetching a higher value than as a scrap. Therefore, the larger public interest would be sub- serving if a motor vehicle were allowed to be sold as such instead of being sold as a scrap. Until and unless a motor vehicle is found not to be roadworthy, the question of the registering authority registering the same as a motor vehicle would not arise. Such a situation has not been allowed to crop up in the instant case. Right at the threshold, the application and request of the writ petitioner for registering the vehicle purchased by him, has been turned down by the 1st respondent. That, to my mind, is impermissible in terms of the mandate contained in Sub-rule (2) of Rule 57 of the Rules. The 1st respondent ought to have recognized the State Government in its Excise Department as the true owner of the vehicle. It ought to have subjected the vehicle for inspection and check to test its roadworthiness. Thereafter, perhaps, it would have justified in deciding as to whether the vehicle should be treated as a motor vehicle or it should be declared as a scrap. Without doing so, as a rule of thumb, in every case, where motor vehicles are sold on public auction, should not be treated as scrap as intended and suggested by the Transport Commissioner. Let us look at from a different perspective also. It may not be difficult for one to visualize a situation where the State and the Central Governments should be acquiring large number of motor vehicles for the use of its officers. As a prudent practice, after they have run for certain number of kilometers or after they have been in use for a fixed number of years, the State would be requiring to replace them with new set of vehicles. The old vehicles, hence would be treated to have been condemned. The act of condemnation, in a given case, can encompass even an otherwise roadworthy vehicle. In such a situation, what is sought to be achieved by condemnation by the State is the fact that the State is no longer interested in using or operating such a vehicle. It can be, that the operational costs will far outweigh the advantages in operating such vehicles. It is left to the purchaser to purchase the same and bring it back to useful and roadworthy condition. Therefore, as rule of thumb, every motor vehicle, which is put to public auction by the State, shall not be treated to have been condemned and unworthy to be brought on roads. Therefore, the circular instructions passed on by the Commissioner of Transport on 08-03-2010, should necessarily be understood as confined in their sweep and operation only to such vehicles, which are not otherwise roadworthy. Therefore, every registering authority before whom an application in Form 32 is brought, is liable to examine and check the vehicle in question and ascertain its roadworthiness and in case it is found that the vehicle is otherwise roadworthy, steps in terms of Subrule (2) of Rule 57 of the Rules must be taken. Only in case the check of the vehicle reveals that the vehicle in question is not roadworthy, then, the registering authority will be legitimate and justified in rejecting to register the vehicle in question. In the instant case, the registering authority has rejected the application of the writ petitioner right at the threshold without subjecting the vehicle in question to check or inspection for its roadworthiness. I, therefore, direct the 1st respondent to forthwith proceed to check and inspect the vehicle produced by the writ petitioner bearing registration No. T.N.09-AT-8474 and in case it is found to be roadworthy, register the same in the name of the 2nd respondent in terms of Subrule (2) of Rule 57 of the Rules at the first instance and thereafter record transfer of ownership in favour of the writ petitioner, in accordance with law. Let this exercise be completed within a maximum period of thirty days from today. With this, the writ petition is allowed. No costs. --------------------------------- Nooty Ramamohana Rao, J Note: Issue copy in a week. Mark LR copy. (bo) mrk 23rd December 2010.