RLA to pay for forcing man to make rounds for RC

Terming it guilty of harassing a Sector-49 resident by forcing him to make rounds to get a registration certificate (RC), the district consumer disputes redressal forum has directed the Registering and Licensing Authority (RLA) to pay Rs 10,000 as compensation for deficient services.

Terming it guilty of harassing a Sector-49 resident by forcing him to make rounds to get a registration certificate (RC), the district consumer disputes redressal forum has directed the Registering and Licensing Authority (RLA) to pay Rs 10,000 as compensation for deficient services.

Disposing of a complaint filed by Ramesh Chand, the consumer forum also directed the RLA to pay Rs 3,500 as litigation cost and ordered the RLA to “issue a direction to Ramesh in writing enumerating the formalities to be fulfilled within 15 days and issue registration certificate to him within one month of the fulfilling of formalities”.

Chand had submitted before the forum that he had applied for registration of his vehicle with RLA on October 17, 2012 and deposited Rs 1,340 as processing fee. His three-wheeler passenger vehicle had initially passed for two years from October 2010 to October 2012.

He was told that the RC would be delivered on February 3, 2013. But, when he visited the RLA office in Sector 42, Chandigarh, on the given date, he was asked to return, and the same thing was repeated several times.

The consumer forum presided over by PL Ahuja on November 27 ruled that, “If the complainant had moved an application for registration of his three-wheeler after depositing Rs 1,340 on October 17, 2012, the complainant ought to have been given in writing that he was required to furnish a fresh fitness certificate from the competent authority and then his request for fresh registration certificate could be considered. Instead of it, the RLA officials went on extending the validity on different dates, which points out towards carelessness and deficiency in service on the part of the RLA officials.”

In its reply, the RLA contended that Chand got his vehicle passed in December 2010 from the State Transport Authority, Chandigarh, but did not apply for registration for two years and when the fitness validity was going to expire on October 18, 2012, he came to register the vehicle on October 17, 2012.

It added that once the fitness validity of a transport vehicle expired, the registration certificate could not be issued in respect of the said vehicle as the software installed at the RLA refused to accept it.

It claimed that further dates as alleged by the complainant were given to him only on his request to enable him to obtain the necessary fitness certificate from the competent authority.