The Delhi High Court has sought response from Centre Government on a plea seeking a policy on uniform road tax for private vehicles all over India.
The plea also seeks direction to Centre to keep a unified online database for vehicles registered all over India. The plea aims for a facility wherein if a vehicle registered at the RTO office of one state gets registered in another state, the lifetime road tax paid in the previous state may automatically be paid by the previous state to the new state.
It was further contended that as per Section 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 the vehicle owner has to seek a new registration mark for motor vehicles under new Transport Authority in case the vehicle is transferred to a new state and kept for more than 12 months after taking No objection from the RTO of the previous state.
This further entails payment of one road tax again to the new state irrespective of the fact that the vehicle owner had already paid onetime road tax in the earlier state, it said
The petition is filed by Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Deepak Bajpai wherein he has pleaded that “This regulatory requirement of making people change their vehicle registration when there is a change in address exists as different States have different tax structures for vehicles. The idea is to discourage people from buying vehicles from those States where the taxes are lower, making the vehicle cheaper. Hence a Uniform road tax for the private vehicles all over India is a dire need in order to prevent harassment of those who due to bona fide personal or professional reasons shift to other states. It is submitted that the Uniform road tax will discourage buyers to get their vehicles other than their home states that have the comparatively lower rate of one-time road tax.”
