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Society Magazine
Motor Vehicle Liability ~ After Sale of Vehicle but RC Not Getting Transferred !! -legal Position
Posted on the 17 July 2016 by Sampathkumar Sampath
Half
a century ago, buying a Vespa or Bajaj Chetak was cherished dream for Indian
middle class. Not any longer. On every Indian
city, you see so many new cars ~ many high end models too ! – yet buying a car
is a cherished dream for the working class who would proudly display the photo
of taking delivery of the car; or post the photo on Instagram / facebook and
other social media.
Karakattakaran,
released in 1989 directed by Gangai Amaran starring Ramarajan and Kanaka was a
big hit with tickling comedy of Goundamani and Senthil. The dancer team will own a very old car which
many a times would have to be pushed. In
one such instance, Goundamani would reel off the earlier owners of the car
trying to claim superiority – Senthil would ask him a Q on its erstwhile owner,
which provoked peels of laughter !!!
The proof of ownership
is ‘RC Book’ ~ the Registration Certificate.
The Motor Vehicles Act provides for the registration of all motor
vehicles in the country. Each motor vehicle is assigned with a unique
Registration Number. Once the vehicle is
registered, a certificate is issued to the owner of the vehicle. When the owner
moves from one State to another, technically, the vehicle will have to
re-registered. .. .. and when people
move up in the ladder, they sell their old car and buy a higher model. The sale process is not complete by mere
handing over the vehicle upon receipt of consideration. Name transfer in favour
of buyer should be done ~ else there could be some trouble. [many sell their
vehicles in Used car market or exchange their vehicle with the dealer and do
not care to see what happens next] – in a recent instance, a person came for
claiming NCB and upon checking Online, it was pointed to him that the old
vehicle still stood in his name even after 2 ½ years !
For transfer,
one has to submit to Road Transport Authorities : Notice of transfer in Form-29
(in Duplicate); Application in Form-30
in Duplicate; PAN or GIR or Form-60/61; surrender the original RC; Insurance
Certificate, Proof of address; NOC from Financiers if vehicle has been under
Hire purchase; tax payment proof.
There have been
instances when the Court has held the Registered Owner responsible and liable
to pay compensation to Third parties under Motor Vehicles Act, despite the
proof of sale but transfer not effected in Registration Certificate. Holding the former owner still liable to third parties in respect of claims for
insurance in motor vehicle accident, the Supreme Court held so, considering the
question; " whether the liability of the recorded owner of the vehicle was
coextensive and from the recorded owner it would pass on to the insurer of the
vehicle? In an earlier instance, the Supreme Court in
Pushpa @ Leela v. Shakuntala declared the law in the following terms; It is undeniable that notwithstanding the sale
of the vehicle neither the transferor Jitender Gupta nor the transferee Salig
Ram took any step for the change of the name of the owner in the certificate of
registration of the vehicle. In view of this omission Jitender Gupta must be
deemed to continue as the owner of the vehicle for the purposes of the Act,
even though under the civil law he ceased to be its owner after its sale on
February 2, 1993. In another instance
in (2001) 8 SCC 748 the Court observed
and held that despite oral evidence
proving that the appellant was not the owner of the car on the date of
accident, still foisted liability on the registered owner of the vehicle. For this purpose, it makes sense to keep the
Act Only liability insurance in force till transfer is effected and name change
is registered.
It is not so, in
all jurisdictions. In USA, the certificate of title for a vehicle (also
known as a car title or pink slip; or pinks in the plural) is a legal form,
establishing a person or business as the legal owner of a vehicle. Vehicle
titles normally specifies: Identifying information about the vehicle, normally
at minimum its vehicle identification number, make, and year of manufacture;
the license plate no.’ technical info of the vehicle; name & address of
purchase or registered owner who would normally possess and use it. In the United Kingdom, there is not an
equivalent of a vehicle title. Instead, there is a document known as the
'vehicle registration document', and is issued by the Driver and Vehicle
Licensing Agency (DVLA). It is the V5 document that records who the Registered
Keeper of the vehicle is; it does not establish legal ownership of the vehicle.
These documents used to be blue on the front. However, they were changed to red
in 2010/11 after approximately 2.2 million blank blue V5 documents were stolen,
allowing thieves to clone stolen vehicles much more easily.
Now read this
interesting article in Times of India, Chennai edition of date : Can a registered
owner of a car be made liable to pay compensation in case of a road accident
even if he had sold his vehicle to another person but continued to be the owner
on paper? The Supreme Court has agreed
to adjudicate whether mere transfer of a vehicle without change of registered
ownership would absolve the registered owner of the liability under the Motor
Vehicles Act to pay compensation to a victim if the vehicle met with an
accident.
A bench
of Justices S A Bobde and Ashok Bhushan stayed the order of the Punjab and
Haryana high court which held that the person who had purchased the car would
be liable to pay compensation in case of an accident even if the vehicle is not
registered in his name. The HC had directed one Naveen Kumar to pay
compensation of `5.23 lakh to the family of a person who was killed after being
hit by his car . Challenging the order of the HC, advocate Rishi Malhotra,
appearing for Kumar , contended that the car was not registered in his name and
he could not be asked to pay compensation.
Referring
to the Motor Vehicles Act, Malhotra told the bench that law recognised registered
the owner and not the `real owner' of the vehicle and only the registered owner
could be made liable to pay compensation. He said the Motor Accident Claims
Tribunal had rightly held that only registered owner be made liable to pay
compensation and the HC erred in setting aside the tribunal's order by wrongly
interpreting the Act. “The high court by its judgment created a third
contingency which is not contemplated under the Act wherein mere transfer of a
vehicle without change of registered ownership would absolve the registered
owner from the liability under the Act,“ he said.
The
bench after hearing his arguments agreed to look into it and issued notice to
the registered owner of the offending vehicle.
With regards
– S. Sampathkumar
17th
July 2016.
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