SC notice to Centre on speed governors in HCVs

The Supreme Court today issued notice to Central Government on a petition filed asking for universal policy on speed governors throughout the country. The matter came before the apex court after Karnataka government moved to the court saying it is difficult for the state government to implement the High Court order for installing speed governors in heavy commercial vehicles across the state. The High Court had given September 30th for implementation of the court's order.

The state government has pleaded before the court that this matter concerns the whole country and central government should make a policy on the issue. The state government also contended that it has no problem in installing the speed governors in the new vehicles but the problem starts when it comes to older vehicles. Moreover, it is difficult to install speed governors as different states have different speed limits. To this problem, appearing for one of the petitioners, Senior Advocate Harish Salve suggested to the court that the speed governors can be installed in the old commercial vehicles when they come for fitness test.

The state government has alleged that Central Government has done nothing concrete to address the problem of speed governors. According to state government, the Union Government had convened a meeting in August this year to discuss this problem but nothing came out of that meeting.