Madras High Court upholds ban on fitting crash guards, bull bars to vehicles

The Madras High Court on Tuesday refused to set aside the Central government's 2017 notification advising States and Union Territories to ensure that crash guards or bull bars are not permitted on motor vehicles. (LD Lenin Paul v. The Principal Secretary / Transport Commissioner and ors).A Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice PD Audikesavalu ruled that the Court cannot interfere in such policy matters. ."At the end of the day, it appears that public interest may have impelled the Central Government to issue the notice and, on a matter of policy where the Central Government perceives that a thing is necessary in public interest, the court would not willy-nilly intervene unless it finds the policy to be absurd or objectionable to the meanest mind", the Court said..The Bench, however, expressed hope that the ban on crash guards and bull bars would be implemented across the board and that "so-called important persons are not exempted from the rule.".The petitioners before the Court had contended, inter alia that these additional fittings were intended to give additional protection and that there was no study was conducted to support its perceived ill-effects..The Court confined to noting in its order that larger vehicles with crash guards often behave like bullies on the road. ."It may also do well to take judicial notice of the larger, higher private passenger vehicles that are fitted with crash guards and behave as bullies on roads, particularly on the highways," the order stated. .All the same, the Bench added that its order would not prevent the manufacturers of crash guards from sending any representation to the Central government on the issue..With this, the petitions challenging the December 2017 notification issued by the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways were closed. .Senior Advocate AR L Sundaresan and advocates Ajay Francis Inigo Loyola and J Ashok appeared for the petitioners. State counsel C Harsha Raj and advocate Hajamohideen Gisthi appeared for the respondents. .[Read Order]