The Hindu: New Delhi: Sunday,
October 09, 2016.
In an unusual
case, a man moved the Delhi High Court for being denied a registration number
for his prospective luxury car. The man wanted a jumping number - 9999 - for a
car he intended to purchase in the future.
Petitioner
Karkrishan Das is not upset over just being denied the number; he is also
bothered by the fact that other applicants were given such numbers.
‘Illogical’,
says petitioner
Producing the
list of applicants procured by him under the RTI Act, Mr Das said he found it
“illogical”.
To add to his
woes, the Transport Department added a rule to the Motor Vehicles Act in 2014,
according to which the minimum reserve price for the number ‘9999’ was fixed at
Rs. 2 lakh.
This forced
him to approach the Delhi High Court.
“Why only
9999?,” asked Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva.
“Well, your
Lordship. I like number 9. My passport number has ‘99’ in it, all my mobile
numbers and landline numbers have 999 or 99,” said the petitioner.
This response
led the court to erupt with laughter, after which the petitioner added, “This
is a case of illegal denial of a number. I had applied for the number ‘9999’ in
2010. They denied it to me but gave such numbers to some 300 applicants,” he
said.
“And what car
do you want the number for,?” the Bench asked.
“Well, I
would have decided once I got the number,” said Mr. Das.
In 2011, the
petitioner had received a phone call from the Transport Department, which tried
to negotiate with him saying that if granted the number he would take back the
petition.
“On what
grounds have they denied me the number? Why have they given the same number to
at least 300 others in line? This goes to show that either they have been
taking money or gratification for giving away registration numbers. But I am
not one to pay bribe,” says the petitioner who even bought a property with ‘ 9’
in the address.
He added that
when he had applied for the number, it was not a VIP number. “Why should I pay
now to take it?”
Petitioner
says that while he was denied the number ‘9999’, 300 others were given similar
numbers.
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