The Act to amend the provisions of the beneficial statute i.e. the Motor Vehicles Act of 1988, is enacted recently, in the year 2015 as the ‘Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2015’ (Act no. 3 of 2015), which was enacted with the intent to make provisions for the amendment of the provisions of the said Principal Act of 1988. It was the situation, earlier to the enactment of this Amending Act, where, it was made clear that no person can be granted with the learner’s licence for driving a transport vehicle unless he has held the driving license for the One year’s period, at least. Moreover, the E- rickshaws and E- carts are being defined to have Three- wheels and limited power of 4000 watts, and its specification for speed and dimension can be regulated through the rules, which can be made under the Principal Act. Thus, such vehicles can be allowed to be driven by the drivers who can drive E- rickshaws and E- carts. However, nearly all the E- rickshaw and E- cart drivers not having any license, as such they will be debarred from operating such E- rickshaws and other such vehicles for a year. For removing this difficulty, the Centre has proposed this Amending Law. As such, the bill in this connection was presented and also an Ordinance of 2015 (No. 2 of 2015) was promulgated by the President of India to this effect, on 7th day of January, 2015.
This Amending Act was introduced in the Lok Sabha 2nd day of March, 2015 and it was cleared from there on the very next day, and later on 11th day of March, same year, it was cleared from Rajya Sabha too. As such, the present Amending Act of 2015 was enacted by the Parliament of India and it was given assent by the President of India on 19th day of March, 2015. The present Amending Act is comprising of only Six sections, out of them the first section (Section 1) is making introductory provisions and also notably, the same provision is also making it clear that the provisions of this Amending Act should be having a retrospective effect from the 7th day of January, 2015.
Thus, the present Amending Act is at its first count prefers to amend the Principal Act and sought to insert a new Section 2A after its existing Section 2. And with this new section, this Amending Act is seeking to apply the provisions of the Principal Act in relation to the e- cart and e- rickshaws. Further the second clause of this new provision is defining the said ‘’. Moreover, the Section 7 of the Principal Act which is imposing restrictions on the granting of the learner’s e- cart and e- rickshaw license for certain vehicle is amended by this Amending Act’s Section 3 and a new proviso is added to Section 7(1), where it is seeking to protect the e- cart and e- rickshaw against the applicability of such restrictions.
Further, the section 4 of this Amending Act is adding the new sub- section (10) after existing sub- section (9) to the section 9, which is basically dealing with the ‘Grant of driving license’. This new sub- section (10) is providing that the driving license in connection with the e- cart or e- rickshaw should be issued in the similar manner as will be prescribed, irrespective of the provisions contained under the existing law. Moreover, the section 27 of the Principal Act, which is empowering the Central Government to make rules, is amended to add new Clause (a) before the existing clause (a), which was re- numbered as (aa) and also another new clause as Clause (ff) is added. And all such clauses are offering the topics for making rules by that Government. The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Ordinance of the year 2015 is also repealed by the section 6 of the present Amending Act, however, the things done or action taken in furtherance of such provisions are protected.
Read the Bare Act here