Supreme Court: Acting upon the contempt petition dealing with the issue of implementation of Scheme of High Security Registration Plates (HSRP) in disobedience of this Court’s order in Maninderjit Singh Bitta vs. Union of India, (2012) 1 SCC 707, the 3-judge bench of T.S. Thakur, CJ, R.K. Agrawal and R. Banumathi, JJ gave the below mentioned directions:
- The State Governments shall ensure selection and authorisation only of those Type Approved Certificate (TAC) manufactures who have been financially and technically competent to manufacture and supply the requisite number of HSRP in the State.
- Periodic assessment, review and audit by the testing agencies of all the aspects involved in the HSRP product specifications, process compliances and operational procedures to ensure that quality and specifications is not being compromised.
- HSRP contracts should be awarded pursuant to a transparent tender process.
- The authorized HRSP manufacturer shall not outsource the blank plate manufacturing as job work for the purpose of implementation of terms and condition of the Contract signed.
- The record must be maintained by the manufacturer of HSRP as to the number of plates manufactured and made ready everyday alongwith weekly and monthly statements.
- The manufacturing unit must strictly govern and control the implementation of the process of production and fixation of HSRP.
- The testing agencies along with the team comprising of State level officer (not below the rank of RTO) and one expert as nominated by the Transport Commissioner of the respective State shall inspect the unit and certify the manufactured HSRP and manufactured HSRP shall leave the factory premises of the manufacturer only after being cleared by the testing agencies.
- The Central Government and the State Governments should register complaints regarding the violation and take strict actions in accordance with law.
- The Central Government should create a nationwide common repository of Vehicular Registration Data for achieving the basic objective behind the idea of HSRP scheme and thereby ensuring smooth implementation at the grass root level.
[Maninderjit Singh Bitta v. Vijay Chhibber, 2016 SCC OnLine SC 695, decided on 13.07.2016]