A Delegate Can’t Alter Legislative Policy: Rajasthan HC Discards Levying Of Additional Fee Each Day On Delay After Expiry Of Vehicle Fitness Certificate
The Rajasthan High Court has discarded levying of additional fee for each day on delay in filing application after expiry of vehicle fitness certificate.
The Jaipur Bench was deciding a batch of various Writ Petitions filed by the transport operators, assailing the Constitutional validity and vires of the provisions contained in Rule 81 of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 to the extent it seeks to levy “additional fee of fifty rupees for each day of delay after expiry of certificate of fitness”.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Ashutosh Kumar held, “In the case of Gaurav Kumar Vs. Union of India & Others (supra), the principles with regard to limitation of rule making power were clearly delineated, as held in Para 58 and 59 thereof, quoted hereinabove. Rule making power is only ancillary and cannot be so exercised to bring into existence substantive rights, obligations or disabilities not contemplated by the provisions of the parent enactment and the rules must align with the object and purpose of the Act. It has been highlighted that the delegate derives its legislative powers from the parent statute. Unlike the Legislature, which has sovereign legislative powers derived from the Constitution, the delegated authority is conferred powers by the parent enactment and, therefore, delegated authority must strictly conform to the provisions of the statute under which it is framed. A delegate, therefore, cannot alter or change the legislative policy.”
The Bench added that a delegate cannot override the provisions of the parent enactment either by exceeding the legislative policy or making provisions inconsistent with the enactment.
Advocate Rajani Vyas represented the Petitioners while Additional Solicitor General (ASG) R.D. Rastogi represented the Respondents.
In this case, the Petitioners were transport operators and were required to keep their vehicles in a condition fit to operate on roads. The State opened number of fitness testing centres where the vehicles are required to be subjected to test of fitness as per the norms prescribed under the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (MV Act) read with the Rules framed thereunder. The competent authority certifies fitness of a transport vehicle for a specified period. The law requires the fitness certificate to be renewed from time to time without which a vehicle cannot be allowed to operate on roads. Rule 81 of the Rules of 1989, as amended vide notification in 2021 prescribes various regulatory fee as also fee towards providing services.
Along with an application for grant/renewal of fitness certificate of a particular motor vehicle, application fee is envisaged under the Rules of 1989. While Rule 81 of the Rules of 1989 lays down application fee in the matter of grant/renewal of fitness certificate, Serial No. 11A of Rule 81 of the Rules of 1989 seeks to levy additional fee for delay of each day in making an application for renewal. The Petitions before the High Court challenged the imposition of additional fee of Rs. 50/- for delay of each day in submitting an application for renewal. Accordingly, Rule 81 of the Rules of 1989 as amended vide notification to the extent it incorporates a provision with regard to levy of additional fee of fifty rupees for each day of delay as provided under Serial No. 11A thereof was under challenge in the Petitions.
The High Court in view of the facts and circumstances of the case, observed, “… it is not within the domain of the Central Government or the State Government to levy a new fine other than those provided under Chapter XIII of the Act of 1988 but the obligation is only to the extent of revision or increase in the manner prescribed under the provisions as stated hereinabove.”
The Court further noted that Section 210C of MV Act empowers the Central Government to make rules for design, construction and maintenance standards for national highways; such other factors as may be taken into account by the Court under sub-section (3) of Section 198A and any other matter which is, or has to be, prescribed by the Central Government and therefore, the power to frame Rules under Section 210C(c) of the Act of 1988, though broad and general in nature, has to be exercised as delegate of the Legislature in respect of any matter which is or has to be prescribed by the Central Government under the scheme of the provisions contained in Chapter XIII of the Act relating to offences, penalties, and procedure.
“We could not find any provision under Chapter XIII relating to penalties which empowers the Central Government to levy fine or penalty only on the basis that owner of a transport vehicle has failed to get fitness certificate renewed before expiry of the same. Penalties, which have been specified under the provisions of Chapter XIII of the Act of 1988, amongst other things, provide for penal consequences for using a motor vehicle without registration”, it said.
The Court added that a conjoint reading of Sections 39 and 56 of the Act of 1988 would show that where the fitness certificate of a transport vehicle expires, its registration is deemed to be not validly registered and, therefore, it cannot be operated and plied on the road. It further said that in such an eventuality, where without getting the fitness certificate renewed, a transport vehicle is plied on road, it would invite penal consequences under Section 192 of the Act.
“In such an eventuality, the Central Government could frame appropriate rules in exercise of powers under Section 210C(c) of the Act of 1988 providing appropriate mechanism for imposition of fine provided under the law. The rule making power is only ancillary to the substantive provisions contained in the enabling Act and in the garb of rule making power, no punitive measures can be taken for something which is not declared to be in contravention of the provisions of the law inviting any punitive measure by imposition of fine or penalty”, it also remarked.
The Court enunciated that if the substantive provisions contained in the Act of 1988 do not provide for any penal consequence for not getting the fitness certificate renewed before expiry of its validity period, a punitive provision for failure to get the fitness certificate renewed before expiry could not be provided in the garb of rule-making power and the argument based on harmonious construction relying upon several decisions, therefore, must fail.
“In the garb of additional fee, a legislative policy of fine has been introduced in the absence of there being any such scheme of fine on failure to apply for renewal of fitness certificate before its expiry. … While examining the challenge to the validity, observations and recommendations of a Committee constituted to consider the revision of fee was taken into consideration which recorded that as there is no fine prescribed for non-renewal of fitness certificate before its expiry, there is likelihood of such vehicles plying on expired certificates of fitness. Therefore, to curb that tendency, it was considered necessary to levy a fine for non-renewal of fitness certificate in time”, it elucidated.
The Court, therefore, declared that the note appended to Serial No. 11A of Rule 81 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 is ultra vires Section 64(o) read with Section 211 of the MV Act and the same is, therefore, inoperative in law and in the matter of consideration of application for renewal of fitness certificate filed by the Petitioners, the Respondents shall not levy any additional fee for each day of delay after expiry of validity period of fitness certificate.
Accordingly, the High Court allowed the Writ Petitions.
Cause Title- Shyam Prakash Meena & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024:RJ-JP:50573-DB)
Appearance:
Petitioners: Advocates Rajani Vyas, Surjeet Singh, Pradeep Kumar Choudhary, Sultan Singh Kuri, Pradhuman Singh Rathore, Narsi Prasad Sharma, Raj Kumar Saini, K.N. Sharma, Pankaj Chaudhary, Ankit Sharma, Kuldeep Bhatia, Nem Singh Gurjar, Raghuraj Singh Rajawat, Manoj Avasthi, Satish Kumar Khandelwal, Devendra Raj Jain, Vinay Pandey, Prakhar Sharma, Noopur Sharma, Shyam Gupta, Raj Kumar Goyal, Sanjeev Kumar, Sunil Kumar, Shovit Jhajharia, Sandeep Jain, Vijay Punia, Majhar Hussain, Vikas Yadav, Aatish Jain, Nitish Kumar Jain, Rakesh Kumar Bairwa, Deepak Soni, Jyoti Verma, Pankaj Soni, Suresh Kumar Dhenwal, Dushyant Singh Naruka, Mayank Kumar Choudhary, Sanwar Mal, Ram Avtar Pareek, Manoj Kumar, Ashish Sharma Upadhyay, Poonam Singh Ratnu, Ramavtar Bochalya, Abhishek B. Sharma, Ankush Sharma, Rakesh Kumar Saini, Basant Singh Rathore, Saurabh Bhandari, Y.K. Sharma, and Arvind Kumar Arora.
Respondents: ASG R.D. Rastogi, AAG S.S. Naruka, Advocates C.S. Sinha, Vaibhav Bhansali, Rajat Sharma, Kanika Wadhwani, Sachin Singh Rathore, Aniket Vyas, and Angad Haksar.
