MV Act Amendment : Playing Political Poker On Pot - holed Roads !
BY R.K.MISRA
“If you are
gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty”, said Marilyn Monroe. Sure
Madamoiselle ! would go an imaginary
conversation for there is no other way to explain the contradictions in the
implementation of the amendments to the Motor Vehicles Act which came into
effect from September 1, 2019 and stirred up a hornets nest countrywide.
Narendra Modi is a powerful Prime Minister
who rules with an iron hand. He has a steamroller majority which ensured easy piloting of the Motor
Vehicles(Amendment)Bill, 2019 through Parliament until it became a law on
August 9, 2019. The amendments were made in consultation with transport
ministers from 18 states along with discussions with other standing committees.
And yet mere
days before it was slated to be implemented, Gujarat- the Prime Minister’s home
state as well as that of his powerful party chief as well as Home Minister,
Amit Shah- stalled and watered down it’s penal provisions. Soon other BJP ruled
states followed suit.
Was the
powerful Prime Minister bending to a breeze or
was he cutting one of his
own to size ?. There is a section of
opinion within his own party which believes that the penalties were
deliberately kept steep to provide for scaling down and yet keep the final
figure high enough. However, if so be the case then Transport Minister Nitin
Gadkari did not seem aware of the strategy for he kept going out on a limb to aggressively
market the exponential increase to the ultimate detriment of his political
stature.
This seemed
quite a let down for a seasoned politician and a focused minister, once seen as
a prime ministerial replacement if the
BJP failed to get a clear majority in this year’s general elections. Analysts
believe that Gadkari was a victim of internal politics who was led up the garden path by those at the
helm and then cut to size.
How else does
one account for the fact that there was hardly a demurring state when the
centre was moving on the need for increased penalties. They were in agreement
when the amendments were notified. Gujarat which was the prime mover in
backtracking and reducing the fines, had even hosted meetings for other state
ministers to discuss related issues. The Transport Development Committee held
five meetings since 2016 to discuss amendments to the Act and there was no
dissenting notes.
Gadkari was bravado personified when he went
on record to state that he was not afraid of protests. Gujarat Chief minister
Vijay Rupani , apparently did not concur and was the first to water down the
fines. He could not have done so without concurrence of Shah or Modi. He was
followed soon after with dissenting noises emerging from Uttarakhand, Goa and
Karnataka seeking reconsideration of the measure and voicing their resolve to
slash it nevertheless. Others too
followed suit.
The amendments in the 30 year old law which aim
to make Indian roads safer ,reduce corruption and use technology to overhaul
the country’s creaking transportation system was introduced in Parliament by
the road transport and highway ministry
in 2016 and was passed by the Lok Sabha in 2017 but failed to muster support in
the Rajya Sabha and was re-introduced this year.
BJP’s internecine politics
notwithstanding, the high fines did lead to a rising tide of popular disquiet .
As social media began reflecting the latent anger, the chief minister first
moved to announce that the new rules would take effect only from September 16
as against September 1 and later announced the new watered down rates. He could not have
possibly done so without concurrence from the top i.e. Shah or Modi himself.
Said Rupani” the state government
has the powers to make changes in the fine structure brought out by the Centre
in the Motor Vehicles Act,2019”. The Union Ministry of Roads , Transport and
Highways does not agree. It has apparently sought the Law ministry’s opinion on whether state
governments can reduce the lower limits
for fines as enshrined in the law. Gujarat, in it’s notification has breached
the lower limit prescribed in the MV Act and also altered fines, the Act does
not permit.
Article 254 of the Constitution
is clear that if there is a point of contention between the centre and the state
on a provision of law that falls in the concurrent list, then the central law
shall prevail. Section 200 of the MV Act gives the stat government powers to
decide penalties for 24 sections and Gujarat as well as other states are amending
these to suit its needs. However Gujarat is violating
Article 254 of the constitution by moving into the domain of non-compoundable
offences and this may not stand in a court of law.
Under the amended fine structure in Gujarat, the penalty for not wearing a helmet is
changed to Rs 500, which is Rs 1000 under the MV Act while violations of not
wearing seat belts will now invite a fine of Rs 500 as against Rs 1000 in the
original rules. Similarly driving a vehicle without a driving license will
attract a fine of Rs 2000 in the case of two-wheelers and Rs 3000 for the rest, as
against Rs 5000 under the new rule. If the license, insurance, PUC, RC book is
not there, the fine will be as per the new Motor Vehicles Act.
For the first
time, Rs 500 will be fined and second time penalty is Rs 1000. For riding triples, the fine will be Rs 100 as
against Rs 1000 in the MV Act and driving
a polluting vehicle has a fine of Rs 10,000 under the new MV Act,
whereas in Gujarat it will be Rs 1000 for small vehicles and Rs 3000 for large
vehicles.
There is a section of opinion
which strongly believes that ‘ fear’ is the only factor which can bring some semblance of order to
the mess that is the killing chaos on Indian roads. However the inappropriate
timing to begin implementing it- potholes pockmark monsoon hit roads
countrywide- has turned popular ire to
the lack of basic services. People have been quick to demand a similar fine
structure and action against officialdom for
pot-holed roads, polluted drinking water ,milch cattle impeding traffic
on thoroughfares even goring drivers to death and hawker- laden pavements
edging out commuters onto roads.
A citizenry already groaning
under a heavy load of taxes and cess on the one hand and the profligacy of
government and officialdom ,on the other has now begun to stridently demand
accountability. If the number of accident
deaths in Gujarat have gone up to 8000 annually(says the chief minister).the
India figure for 2017 stands at 1.47 lakh, which is higher than the total
population of Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya). The incidents of traffic
cops being beaten up by enraged commuters has also been rising steadily. This
is less due to booking of traffic violators and more because of the harassment
and ‘extortion’ by bribe seeking cops. The implementation of the new rules ,it
is feared , will only ensure a manifold rise in the appetite of the
bribe-seeking policeman and therefore more grease for its top brass.
With news of reckless levying of
fines streaming in from states where the full force of the new
law has been unleashed , the mounting
anger is seeing other states also
wading into the concessions current. News reports point to an auto-rickshaw
driver in Orissa being fined Rs 40,000 and a truck driver in Rajasthan over Rs
one lakh-all for traffic rules violations. Goa government has now made it clear
that the new rules will only be implemented after all the pot-holed roads are repaired. The
trending joke is that government refuses to let the commoner forget
the old BSNL ringtone ” you are in queue, please wait”, whether demonetization,
GST and now PUC !
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