Driving your own vehicle may provide immense pleasure to you. Apart from signalling the new-found independence and financial stability, it reflects your pride and status. However, regardless of the reason, purchasing a new car or two-wheeler also brings along certain legal responsibilities with itself.
Before the wheels are in motion, the law requires you to have a valid driving license and a motor insurance plan for your vehicle. While the former is obvious, a vehicle insurance policy is required for covering you against the third-party liabilities that you may incur while driving on-road, apart from securing your newly-purchased machine against damages and mishaps.
Similarly, you need to obtain the Registration Certificate (RC) of your vehicle from the registration authorities under the Public Vehicles Department of India. As per the 2017 amendments to The Motor Vehicles Act of 1988, driving an unregistered vehicle without proper registration address is illegal and considered a punishable offence.
What is Vehicle Registration?
Registering your vehicle with the Regional Transport Office (RTO) of your area is mandatory under the Motor Vehicles Act. It includes the process of imbibing the credentials of your vehicle in government records after its due verification. It helps in establishing a link between the motor vehicle and the owner of that vehicle.
As per the law, a car, two-wheeler or any other type of vehicle must have two high-security registration plates (HSRPs) installed at the front and back of the vehicle. If one of these number plates are missing, then the vehicle-owner or driver can be fined by police or other authorities.
These HSRPs contains the registration number of the vehicle in modern Hindu-Arabic numerals with Latin letters, as prescribed by the RTO. The registration number of the vehicle follows a specific format. For instance, if the number plate reads ‘MH O4 EG xxxx’, the break-up of it is as follows:
- ‘MH’ are the initials of the state in which the vehicle is registered. In this case, ‘MH’ stands for Maharashtra.
- ‘04’is the code of the Regional Transport Office (RTO). In this case, it represents the Thane and Mulund region of Maharashtra.
- ‘EG’ are two letters which represents the series of alphabetical order in which all the cars are registered within the specified RTO.
- ‘XXXX’ is the four-digit unique registration number allotted to the vehicle.
You can even opt for customized registration numbers by paying a supplementary fee to the RTO. Additionally, the RTO also holds an auction for classic or fancy numbers as well.
Why is it Important?
Registering your vehicle is mandatory under the law and is also essential for establishing the proof of ownership of your vehicle. It is required for the purpose of sale of the new vehicle or for the transfer of ownership of the vehicle when you plan to resell it. Cars and two-wheelers with proper vehicle registration are only permitted to ply on Indian roads.
How to obtain the registration number of your vehicle?
As soon as you purchase a new vehicle, the dealer applies for its registration at the local RTO. Upon the receival of an application to register a vehicle, the RTO provides a temporary registration number so that the vehicle can be driven on road for RTO visits and other official errands. After the issuance of temporary registration number, you will be provided a permanent registration certificate within a month or so, confirming the ownership of the vehicle in your name.
The registration certificate for a newly purchased vehicle is valid for 15 years and then it has to be renewed every 5 years. In case you’ve to move to another state or union territory, you can drive your vehicle with the previous registration address for a maximum of 12 months, post which you need to re-register it with the local RTO.
How to Change your Vehicle Registration?
Under special circumstances such as the one mentioned above, you may have to re-register your vehicle with the new RTO and apply for the change in its registration address. For this, you need to visit the local RTO, where you want to transfer the vehicle, along with the following documents:
- Application in Form 33
- Original Registration Certificate
- Proof of new address
- Valid motor insurance certificate
- Pollution under control certificate
- No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the original RTO
- Attested copy of PAN card or Form 60 and Form 61 (as applicable)
- Chassis & Engine Pencil Print
- Signature Identification of owner