Plea in Kerala HC Seeking Aadhaar Verification to Prevent Vehicle Ownership Fraud

A petitioner has approached the Kerala High Court, seeking directives to the State Transport Commissioner and the Central government to facilitate Aadhaar authentication for verifying ownership and preventing fraud during the transfer of vehicle ownership.

A single bench of Justice Murali Purushothaman sought responses from the Centre, State Transport Commissioner, Regional Transport Officer, and the petitioner’s husband.

During the issuance of notice to the concerned Central and State authorities, Justice Purushothaman remarked orally, “It is a dangerous situation.”

The plea was lodged by a woman aggrieved by her husband’s alleged actions of transferring the ownership of her vehicle to his name without her consent or knowledge, accomplished by forging her signature.

She contended that her husband had falsified her signature on Forms 29 and 30, necessary for the ownership transfer of motor vehicles as stipulated by the Central Motor Vehicle Rules 1989, thus completing the transfer.

In her petition, she highlighted the strained nature of their marital relationship and their prolonged disagreements.

Upon addressing child custody matters, she discovered the alteration in the vehicle’s ownership, she added.

The plea also emphasized that although the Regional Transport Officer had blacklisted the vehicle after receiving the petitioner’s complaint against her husband, no action had been taken subsequently.

The petitioner brought to light various deficiencies in the current ownership transfer process overseen by the State Transport Commissioner and the Centre. These included:

a) The Parivahan website allowing anyone possessing a copy of a vehicle’s registration certificate without hypothecation (as in the petitioner’s case) to transfer ownership from the original owner’s name to theirs. b) Sole reliance on OTP authentication, which could be changed without the owner’s knowledge if the linked phone number was altered. c) The absence of mechanisms to verify the authenticity of signatures in Forms 29 and 30.

She proposed in her plea that these issues could be resolved if Aadhaar authentication were made mandatory by the State Transport Commissioner, Regional Transport Officer, and Centre for any modifications or corrections related to registration certificates.

Hence, the petitioner sought directives from the relevant authorities to institute Aadhaar authentication, thereby ensuring a robust mechanism for the transfer of vehicle ownership.

She further requested an order to the Regional Transport Officer to revoke the registration certificate issued in favor of her husband.