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Bombay High Court seeks Centre’s reply to plea challenging Motor Vehicles Amendment Act – The Indian Express

The Bombay High Court on Thursday sought a response from the central government on a plea by the Bar Association of the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) in Mumbai, challenging the constitutional validity of the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019, and its rules. The plea has sought to quash the amendment Act and a stay on its operations, till the hearing concludes.

It also challenged the introduction of limiting liability of the insurance companies — imposing a limitation period in filing claims by the accident victims; and called it a ‘draconian’ effect over the families of the road accident victims. The plea said that the new provisions have fixed the amount of compensation to the victim, and also replaced the provision by which the compensation was awarded without a proof of negligence being taken into consideration the low income of a person concerned.

After advocate Pranav Thackur, representing the central government, sought time to respond to the plea, a division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Madhav J Jamdar directed that an affidavit be filed in the reply to the plea by November 11. The amendment Bill was first introduced in 2011, which proposed to limit third-party liability of the insurance companies. While the said Bill lapsed, a similar Bill passed in 2019 became an Act despite a strong opposition to the same.

The petitioner — MACT Bar Association — in its plea, filed through advocate Yatin Malvankar, said that it had given representations to the authorities concerned and raised issues in the Bill. As the amended provision of 2019 Act was kept in abeyance for sometime, the same gave an impression to the association that their grievances were considered. However, the Act was fully implemented in April 2022, prompting the MACT Bar Association to approach the Bombay High Court with apprehensions regarding the difficulties to be faced by the litigants. While directing the Centre to file an affidavit in the reply, the court has scheduled the next hearing on November 28.

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Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/bombay-high-court-seeks-centres-reply-to-plea-challenging-motor-vehicles-amendment-act-8198145/