Stickers, artwork on vehicles no hitch to registration: HC
Saurabh Malik
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 14
Motorists can stick to the stickers and artwork on their vehicles. For, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that “I love New York”, “Horn Please”, “Ok Tata” and other stickers on cars and trucks cannot push the vehicles off-road.
Such stickers and other artwork do not imply alteration or change in the vehicle’s basic colour. As such, these are no roadblock for the vehicle’s registration, Justice Jaishree Thakur has asserted.
Justice Thakur added that denying registration because of artwork on a vehicle’s body defied logic. The issue was raised after an inspector refused to pass a vehicle for registration in Chandigarh as its original colour had been changed from white to multi-hued.
Justice Thakur asserted: “Any person who drives upon the GT Road will see slogans, colourful paint job done on trucks that ply from J&K to Kanyakumari. Some of the standard ones are ‘Ok Tata’, ‘Horn Please’, ‘Hum Do Hamare Do’, ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’ and ‘Use Dipper at Night’.
“The trucks are also beautifully decorated with artwork done on some panel or the other. Apart from that, cars too ply with stickers plastered all over them of various countries that the owners have travelled to, the most common one being ‘I love New York’.”
Advertisements too can be seen painted on buses. But the paint job again will not imply that either the vehicle’s basic colour has been changed, or it has been altered, Justice Thakur added.
The Case
*Petitioner Ranjit Malthora through senior counsel Puneet Bali submitted a car was purchased last year from a European Union counsellor in Delhi. Artwork on it was done by “renowned Mexican artist Senkoe”.
*The petitioner obtained NOC from New Delhi, yet authorities in Chandigarh refused to register the vehicle.
