Owner drives around BS4 Mercedes-Benz GLS luxury SUV without registration: SEIZED by RTO

On 1st April 2020, India officially moved to the BS6 emission norms. With the new norms, any vehicle that does not meet the new stringent BS6 norms will not get registered at any RTO. This caused a last-minute rush and many dealerships offering heavy discounts to sell their BS4 compliant vehicles. A court order even extended the registration for 10 days in a few places because of the sudden lockdown in the last week of March. Well, a businessman from Bangalore may lose his Mercedes-Benz GLS SUV as he did not register the SUV.

The GLS was seized after the car was stopped during a routine check. The vehicle was not registered and the owner made the temporary number as a permanent registration number and was driving around. The RTO seized the vehicle for driving without a registration number.

The SUV was bought last year in June and the owner paid Rs 88 lakhs for the ex-showroom price. He received the KA-05-TMP-9861 number as a temporary registration. However, he continued using the number as a permanent number and never registered the car. The RTO has asked the owner to pay the fine and the registration amount for the car, which is Rs 20 lakhs. But the SUV cannot be registered. As per the new laws, no private vehicle that does not meet the BS6 emission standards cannot be registered. Since this is a BS4 car, the RTO cannot issue a permanent registration number to the vehicle. The case will move to the court where a judge will decide if the RTO should register the vehicle.

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It should be noted that Karnataka state has one of the highest road taxes in India. Because of the high taxes, many try to get their cars registered from other states. However, not registering the vehicle at all is a criminal offence. Driving a vehicle without registration number is illegal and it can get seized, just like we have seen in this case. The report does not mention if there was valid insurance on the car but since the insurance for a new car is based on the chassis number and engine number of the car, it may have had insurance. However, we are not sure if the owner renewed the insurance. because at the time of renewal of insurance, the registration details are mandatory.

A vehicle running on temporary registration has a lot of restrictions. A temporary registration plate is valid only for a month. The validity can be extended in certain cases but the extension is given for a few days only.

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