The High Court in Karnataka recommended the Ministry of Road Transport and Motorway (Morth) to review the 1988 motor vehicle and to make suitable changes to deal with the issue of a vehicle type that emerges during the toll collection as a result of scattering in vehicles, especially Abuses.
The justice of M. Nagaprasann approved the order and rejected the petition submitted by the Association of Kajnali, UDUPI and several individual owners of private buses. The petitioners questioned the deduction of other toll amounts later, in addition to the amount deducted from the Fastag account immediately when their buses pass by two deputies between the mangaluur and Kundapur as a result of the non -vehicle type mismatch.
The court noted that the scattering in the classification of vehicles in the MV Act and the rules of national motorways (determination of rates and collection), 2008, framed under the law of the NH, is the cause of this lawsuit and therefore the MV law requires legal improvement.
Background
The petitioners registered information about their vehicles in the Fastag system as “minibus”, although the registration certificate of vehicles issued by a regional official (RTO) classified their vehicles as a “bus” with a capacity of 38 seats.
The petitioner’s argument was that the provisions of the MV law state that vehicles with a shabby weight of less than 12,000 kg are classified as light motor commercial vehicles (LMCV), which include a “minibus”.
However, the toll collection authorities collected a special amount that applies to a “bus/truck” later when Fastag deducted a lower toll usable for LMCV in tolls.
The collection of tolls relied on RTO vehicles belonging to the petitioners because the standards framed according to the 2008 fee collection rules describe a light motor commercial passenger car with a seat capacity of up to 32 as a “minibus” and as a “bus/truck” if the seating capacity is more than 32 and/or the vehicle weight is above 12,000 kg.
The court pointed out that the MV law describes a vehicle with a shabby weight of up to 7,500 kg as a lightweight motor vehicle and over 12,000 kg as a heavy passenger motor vehicle, but in the Act it is “vacuum” with regard to the classification of vehicles between 7,500 kg and 12,000 kg.
Registration as a minibus
Bus owners registered their vehicle in the “minibus” category in Fastag by using the MV law, because many of their buses were below 12,000 kg, although the seating capacity exceeded 32, noted the court while pointing out that the basic toll rate for LMVCS/minibus is 1.05 km.
Although the MV law defines a medium passenger car, the weight of such vehicles is left undefined and the “bus” definition is not found in the MV law, the court said.
The court also recorded the clarification of the RTO to the petitioner’s association, which, regardless of the weight of vehicles, regardless of the fact that all transport vehicles are mentioned as a “bus” in the registration certificates.
Given that the collection of tolls is governed by law NH and the rules of collecting fees and not under the law of the Ministry of Interior, the court confirmed the laws of the authorities in obtaining a different toll amount from the Fastag accounts.
Published – June 7, 2025 9:07
