Rajasthan HC Sets Aside Rule Imposing Rs. 50 Fee For Each Day's Delay In Applying For Vehicle Fitness Certificate Renewal

The Rajasthan High Court has set aside a provision in the Central Motor Vehicle Rules as ultra vires which sought to levy additional fee of Rs. 50 for each day of delay in making an application for renewal of the certificate of fitness required by the transport operators for their vehicles to operate on roads.

A division bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice Ashutosh Kumar held that under the garb of additional fee, the State had introduced a legislative policy of fine without there being any such scheme of fine under the Motor Vehicles Act 1988, on failure of applying for the renewal of the fitness certificate.

On perusing the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, the Central Motor Vehicles Rules including Serial No. 11A of Rule 81 which levies the additional Rs 50 fee the court observed:

"However, if the provision impugned in these petitions is analysed, it is found that an additional charge of fifty rupees under the nomenclature “additional fee” is leviable for each day after expiry of validity of certificate of fitness, declaring it to be a case of delay. Therefore, charge of additional fifty rupees does not bear any correlation with the services rendered, nor there is anything under the provisions of the (Motor Vehicles) Act of 1988 or relevant rules relating to issuance of certificate of fitness to reveal that if application for renewal is not filed before expiry of the period of fitness certificate, any additional exercise, over and above what is required to be undertaken while granting or renewing a fitness certificate before expiry of its validity, would be required to be undertaken".

The court said that the provisions do not show as to what difference would it make if an application for renewal is filed before expiry of the validity of the certificate of fitness or after the expiry, "may be one day, few days, weeks or months".

"There is conscious use of the word, “delay”, which denotes that according to rule making authority, there is a mandate under the law to get the certificate of fitness renewed before its expiry. However, we do not find either in the provisions contained in Section 56 of the Act of 1988 or in any of the relevant rules referred to hereinabove which obliges the owner of the transport vehicle to get the certificate of fitness renewed before expiry of the validity period, much less any penal consequences flowing from such failure to get the certificate of fitness renewed before its expiry," the court added.

The Court was hearing a bunch of petitions filed by transport operators who were required to keep their vehicles in a fit condition to operate on roads for which fitness certificate was issued and as per law the fitness certificate had to be renewed from time to time. Rule 81 of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules that provided for many regulatory fee towards providing services was amended in 2021, adding serial number 11A that sought to levy additional fee of Rs. 50 for each day after expiry of the certificate till the time the renewal application was submitted.

The petitioners questioned the constitutional validity of this amended addition, arguing that the power to levy fee came from the Motor Vehicles Act in which no such fee was provided for. It was argued that levying fee for delay in submission of renewal application was in a nature of fine or penalty as the delay was sought to be penalized. Hence, it was submitted that it was not a fee connected with some regulatory exercise but a penal action for which no power was conferred on the Government by the Act.

On the contrary, it was submitted on behalf of the State that merely because some additional fee was being charged on delayed submission did not make it a penalty or a fine. It was argued that the power to levy fee for providing services was derived from Section 211 of the Act which apart from mentioning various services, also mentioned the phrase “for any other purpose or matter involving the rendering of any service”. Thus, even if the Section did not specifically provided for levy of additional fee, it empowered the authority to prescribe for levying such additional fee.

After hearing the arguments, the Court firstly opined that fee and fine were two different kind of levy.

“While purpose of levying fee is to provide service or as a regulatory control, the purpose of fee is punishment for some contravention and as a measure of deterrence. In case of fee, there is implied or direct service exchange either compensatory or regulatory, but in cases of fine, there is no service or benefit provided. Fine is punitive in nature and imposed as punishment without there being any reciprocal benefit to the prayer and is primarily aimed at deterrence.”

The Court held that even though Section 211 was a residuary power, it did not constitute as a source of authority to levy anything which was not in the nature of fee or for levying any punitive charge or fine or penalty which was otherwise not provided for under the scheme of Act. Reference was made to the Supreme Court case of State of M.P. & Others v Rakesh Sethi and Anr. in which interpretation of Section 211 was given and it was ruled that,

“Parliament intended that contingencies not covered by a specific power to levy fees or amounts, which entailed some activity on the part of the State, including rendering of any service could be legitimately charged or subjected to the levy of fees or amounts. That means, impost has necessarily to be in the nature of fee.”

It further observed that levying additional fees for each day of delay in submitting the renewal application did not bear any correlation with the services rendered, nor was there any provision in the Act for such levy. Hence, such levy of additional fee sought to penalize the transport owners for their failure to get the fitness certificate renewed before its expiry. Therefore, the levy was punitive, in the nature of fine or penalty.

“Therefore, by charging additional fee of fifty rupees for each day of delay in seeking renewal after expiry of the validity period of fitness certificate, something in the nature of fine or penalty is sought to be imposed that too without any valid authority of law and in the garb of power to levy fee. Levy of additional fee for each day of delay does not bear any correlation or connection with expenses in administering the regulations to say that the fee could be levied purely as a regulatory measure. Therefore, it cannot even be treated as a part of regulatory measure.”

The Court highlighted that it was a settled position of law that Government acted as a delegate of Legislature and could not travel beyond the express authority conferred upon it by the Legislature.

Accordingly, the Court while allowing the batch of petitions, ruled that the note appended to Serial No. 11A of Rule 81 of the Rules was ultra vires to Section 64(o) (provision authorizing levying of fee for issuing certificate of fitness) read with Section 211 of the Act and was inoperative in law and directed the State to not levy additional fee as contemplated therein.

"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," the court directed.

Case Title: Shyam Prakash Meena & Ors. v Union of India & Ors., and batch

Citation: 2024 LiveLaw (Raj) 421

Counsels for Petitioners: Ms. Rajani Vyas, Mr. Surjeet Singh, Mr. Pradeep Kumar Choudhary, Mr. Sultan Singh Kuri, Mr. Pradhuman Singh Rathore, Mr. Narsi Prasad Sharma, Mr. Raj Kumar Saini, Mr. K.N. Sharma, With Mr. Pankaj Chaudhary, Mr. Ankit Sharma, Mr. Kuldeep Bhatia, Mr. Nem Singh Gurjar, Mr. Raghuraj Singh Rajawat, Mr. Manoj Avasthi, Mr. Satish Kumar Khandelwal, Mr. Devendra Raj Jain, Mr. Vinay Pandey, Mr. Prakhar Sharma, Ms. Noopur Sharma, Mr. Shyam Gupta, Mr. Raj Kumar Goyal, Mr. Sanjeev Kumar, Mr. Sunil Kumar, Mr. Shovit Jhajharia, Mr. Sandeep Jain, Mr. Vijay Punia, Mr. Majhar Hussain, Mr. Vikas Yadav, Mr. Aatish Jain, Mr. Nitish Kumar Jain, Mr. Rakesh Kumar Bairwa, Mr. Deepak Soni, with Ms. Jyoti Verma, & Mr. Pankaj Soni, Mr. Suresh Kumar Dhenwal, Mr. Dushyant Singh Naruka, Mr. Mayank Kumar Choudhary, Mr. Sanwar Mal, Mr. Ram Avtar Pareek, Mr. Manoj Kumar, Mr. Ashish Sharma Upadhyay, Mr. Poonam Singh Ratnu, Mr. Ramavtar Bochalya, Mr. Abhishek B. Sharma, Mr. Ankush Sharma, Mr. Rakesh Kumar Saini, with Mr. Basant Singh Rathore, Mr. Saurabh Bhandari, Mr. Y.K. Sharma, & Mr. Arvind Kumar Arora.

Counsels for Respondents: Mr. R.D. Rastogi, ASG assisted by Mr. C.S. Sinha, Mr. Vaibhav Bhansali, Mr. Rajat Sharma, & Ms. Kanika Wadhwani, Mr. S.S. Naruka, AAG assisted by Mr. Sachin Singh Rathore, Mr. Aniket Vyas, Mr. Angad Haksar.

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