HC serves contempt notice to Central transport official

Small car safety

By Our Staff Reporter

Guwahati, Aug 5: The Gauhati High Court today issued a contempt notice against the Secretary of Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for failing to comply with an earlier court order regarding the safety of small cars.

Taking up two identical PILs on small car safety, the high court had on June 26 last directed the Central government "not to permit the auto manufacturers to release and sell the small four-wheelers with mass upto 1500 kg and quadric-cycles without putting them to crash and emission tests."

In another order on July 29, the court had directed the Road Transport & Highways secretary to file an affidavit stating the steps taken for implementing the interim order passed by the court.

However, when the case came up for hearing today, the central government respondent failed to file an affidavit.

The division bench of Chief Justice (acting) K Shreedhar Rao and Justice PK Saikia issued the contempt notice to the secretary for the non-compliance.

Meanwhile, the Assam Transport department today told the court that it has directed the vehicle dealers in the State not to launch any new four-wheeler passenger without obtaining proper crash test reports. The DTOs have been also directed not to register such vehicles.

Senior advocate Bhaskar Dev Konwar appeared as Amicus Curie in the PILs

The government recently made it mandatory for new models to meet the minimum frontal and side crash test as well as pedestrian protection test from October 2017 onwards. These norms mean that auto companies will have to install airbags and the anti-lock brake system in all vehicles. India's first crash test facility is expected to come up in Pune under ARAI by the end of the year.