A division bench of Supreme Court has directed that all review and impleading petitions pertaining to the ban on use of tint films on four wheelers be posted for hearing on July 19.
The Car Owners and Consumers’ Association (COCA) here had filed a review and impleading application in the first week of July.
The bench headed by Justice Swatanter Kumar has said that all applications will be bunched together and heard on Thursday next.
Advocate Padma Prasad Hegde, who filed the application, told that the apex court banned tint films on the basis of a PIL filed by Avishek Goenka without hearing other parties involved. There are lakhs of consumers and car owners who use these films. They were not heard at the time of passing the order. The matter should have been given wide publicity before passing the order,” he said.
A bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar went by the limits prescribed in the MV Act and said anything beyond the visual light transmission (VLT) limit of 70% for the front and rear windshields and 50% for the side windows would be punishable.
Hegde noted that denying application of tint film, where the VLT between the manufactured glass and tint film is same, is unreasonable. Manufactured glass with tint is expensive and not all can afford it,” he contended.
The decision came on a PIL filed by Avishek Goenka, who had complained that cars with black film on window panes were being increasingly used for crimes, including sexual assault of women. Hegde said he will place all facts on record before the court and will pray for modification of that order so that tint with prescribed VLT should be allowed.
The biggest danger of using tinted glass, or with film, is the restriction of view of the following cars. This is very important and that is why there are bumper stickers and not window stickers. Abroad, where both right and left hand-drive cars are used with increasing frequency, even fogged rear glasses are asked to be cleaned.
Seeing through the preceding car avoids many accidents as the following driver is able to take evasive action faster. As a person who has done 16 lakh kilometers on motor cycles, I know how stressful it is to follow cars, especially law breaking taxis, who cover the rear window with all sorts of legends, curtains, paraphernalia and paint.
Finally, let us ask the question ‘are tinted glasses really necessary’? Is it to save on power in air conditioning? Or is it just one more way of showing off that one is so important that he can flout the law with impunity?
Why not take up the issue of number plates too? Politicians, non-achievers and petty all, regularly use imaginative fonts, and illegal ones too, to show their disdain for the law.
Let the same law be applicable to all, the President, the PM, you and me. WE ARE BECOMING A SICK COUNTRY AND RIGOR MORTIS IS NOT FAR AWAY.
Where is the rule of law and why are people opposing its implementation? And who is really behind this agitation? The film makers?
ADVOCATE BAPOO M MALCOLM