Motor Vehicles Act – An excellent piece of legislation benefitting India since ages

The Motor Vehicles Act is an act of the Parliament of India that regulates the aspects of the road transport vehicles. The act came into existence from 1^st of July 1988 which replaced the Motor Vehicles Act of the year 1939. The act mentions in detail all about different provisions like licensing of drivers/conductors, registration of motor vehicles, controlling them through permits, traffic regulations and special provisions relating to state  transport, insurance and penalties. This act was implemented to meet the growing demands of the people of India. Almost all states of India have followed the Motor Vehicles rules to regulate the registration of the vehicles, issuing permits and licenses to the drivers.

This act can be considered as welfare legislation as it deals only with road accidents which involve motor vehicles and also enable the victims to claim compensation. It has other advantages like applying for compensations, enabling the government to make rules, providing for appeals and also awarding interest on the compensation amount. It has also created provisions of limitation period of six months to file a claim application for a victim. The documents are then procured pertaining to an accident where the limitation period is also decided depending upon the circumstances. Another characteristic of this act is that it accepts and fixes the cases of road accident victims as tortuous as upon the criminals who have caused the road accidents.

One of the disadvantages is that the process is a little time consuming. While awarding compensation to any accident victim, the tribunal takes into account the type of injury being suffered, whether it is simple or complicated, and if it is complicated the duration of the treatment that has been taken, the medical expenses involved, and the percentage of permanent disability that has been sustained and also the loss of income. In case of permanent disability of the victim, the court invariably relies upon the medical opinion of a medical expert. Accidents Claims Courts are very liberal and follow only procedures in disposing the claims applications but are also very strict in imposing a burden upon the insurance company, provided that the accident and the claim are proved and the driver of the vehicle who has caused the accident had a valid license at the time of the accident.

In case of fatal victims, the court is always guided with the principles of equity and good conscience. The court while awarding compensation in the fatal cases takes a note of the age of the diseased person, his/her education qualifications, employment status, income earned during their death, an income tax payer or not. In the case of diseased persons whose income cannot be decided, the court fixes a notional income say Rs 2,000 or Rs 3,000 per month and after deducting a portion of it, calculates the final award amount. While awarding the compensation, the victims direct the insurance companies or the owners of the vehicle, to deposit the amount along with 7.5% interest from the date of filing the application in the court till the final amount is deposited.

The new Motor Vehicle Act is to be redrafted this month with as stated by Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari. The new bill is likely to include measures such as installing CCTV cameras at all traffic signals and measures to check misuse of driving licenses. He also added that once the new laws were implemented, the number of road death would be reduced drastically. This will be implemented because people in India don’t respect law here. Henceforth with the new act, advanced CCTV cameras would be installed at all traffic signals and anybody violating it would be issued a challan in the next 24 hours. Along with this all public transport vehicles plying in cities will be fitted with advanced GPS tracking system for safety of women too. The current bill passed in May 2012 proposes hefty penalty for traffic rule violations including drunken driving. And compensation of about 1 Lakh for hit and run accidents and 50000 Rs for the injured in such incidents.

Thus, undoubtedly the Motor Vehicles Act as modified from time to time in India is one of the fine pieces of legislation that’s the benefitting India’s Welfare too.

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