Jaipur, September 17 (HS). Rajasthan High Court has refused to lift the ban on charging an additional fee of Rs 50 per day during the period between getting the vehicle's fitness re-fitted after it expires. Along with this, the court has rejected the application filed by the Central Government in this regard. The division bench of CJ MM Shrivastava and Justice Ashutosh Kumar gave this order while hearing the application filed by the Central Government in the petition of Satpal Meel and others. The court accepted that this amount does not come under the category of fees but comes in the form of penalty. In such a situation, it cannot be recovered.
It was said in the application that the court had recently banned the collection of an additional fee of fifty rupees per day after the fitness of the vehicles expired till its renewal. Whereas the government has the right to levy fees. In such a situation, this order should be amended and exemption should be given to collect the fee. Opposing this, the petitioners said that the provision of collecting an additional fee of fifty rupees is against section 211 of the Motor Vehicles Act. There is no provision of penalty in this section. Whereas the government is collecting penalty in the name of additional fees. In such a situation, penalty cannot be collected in the name of additional fees apart from fitness fee. After hearing the arguments of both the parties, the division bench has rejected the application of the Central Government. In the petition, advocate Satish Kumar Khandelwal told the court that the Central Government had issued a notification on October 4, 2021. Under this, a provision was made to collect an additional fee of fifty rupees per day on vehicles whose fitness expired. This has been challenged by filing a petition.