'Using state emblem as vehicle number plate is violation of law'

The stamp of power - the state emblem - on the official vehicles of top constitutional authorities like President, vice-president and state governors in place of a number plate, are in violation of law, the government has admitted in a reply to a Right To Information (RTI) application. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Nov 3, 2013, 24:40:30 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The stamp of power - the state emblem - on the official vehicles of top constitutional authorities like President, vice-president and state governors in place of a number plate, are in violation of law, the government has admitted in a reply to a Right To Information (RTI) application.

The road transport ministry said neither the Motor Vehicles Act nor the Central Motor Vehicle Rules - two instruments for motor vehicle standards – provides for "display of state emblem of India (four lions) in lieu of registration number on motor vehicles".

In simpler terms, the law does not distinguish between common citizens and constitutional authorities when it comes to display of number plate on vehicles. The law says that every vehicle on the road should have a number plate - its unique identification number.

The constitutional authorities have been displaying the state emblem without any number plate. However, there is no record when this practice started.

The government had, however, in 2007 allowed the constitutional authorities and other dignitaries to display the state emblem on their official vehicles.

"But there is no law authorising them to display the state emblem of India in lieu of registration number of the vehicle," the home minister said in a repose to the RTI application filed by Rakesh Agarwal of NGO Nyay Bhoomi.

Agarwal had sought relevant regulations allowing dignitaries to use state emblem in place of the number plate and the number of such vehicles.

Both home and road transport ministry had initially refused to provide information saying it was not relevant, but acted when the information watchdog, the Central Information Commission, issued an order asking them to provide replies to the questions asked.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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