Vehicles of President, Vice President also need to have registration numbers, rules Delhi HC

Delhi HC said that all vehicles shall clearly display the registration numbers.

NEW DELHI: Even the cars of the President and the Vice President will need to have a registration number now, the Delhi High Court ruled on Wednesday. It said that even the vehicles of the country's top constitutional authorities like the President, the Vice President, Governors and Lieutenant Governors will have to be registered with the authority. "All vehicles shall clearly display the registration numbers," the court said.

A plea had earlier been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking to enforce the display of registration numbers on cars of constitutional authorities and dignitaries instead of just the State Emblem of India. The petition filed by an NGO stated that the practice of displaying the state emblem, the four lions, instead of the registration numbers, make the cars conspicuous and the dignitaries an easy target for terrorists and anyone with malicious intent.

"Knowing fully well the very high status of dignitaries travelling in such cars, police and other law enforcement authorities normally do not touch such cars bearing only the State Emblem of India. This feeling of awe on display by the law enforcement authorities may be misused by terrorists and criminals to use such cars for carrying out criminal activities," the petition claimed.

It said that non-display of the registration mark of a vehicle was also a violation of provisions of the Act and non-registration of the cars meant they were not insured.

The plea referred to an RTI response by the Ministry of External Affairs admitting that none of its 14 cars maintained by its protocol division were registered. But it also said that the Rashtrapati Bhawan refused to supply the registration numbers of its cars on the ground that disclosure of this information would endanger the security of the state and life and physical safety of the President.

It said that a person meeting with an accident involving such a car cannot bring any claim against it as due to the absence of any identification mark, the vehicles ownership cannot be known and the citizens get the message that if a dignitary could disobey the law and get away with it, so could they.

"The practice of replacing the registration mark with the State Emblem of India, instead of displaying them both is arbitrary and symptomatic of the desire to rule rather than to serve," the plea alleged, adding that the failure or refusal to register the cars violated the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act.