High court directs Chandigarh to register artwork car

CHANDIGARH: In a significant order, the Punjab and Haryana high court directed the Chandigarh administration to register a car painted with artwork after the transport department had refused to do so, claiming the artwork had changed the vehicle’s character from ‘white colour’ to ‘multicolour.’
The owner of the car had purchased the vehicle from an European Union diplomat posted in Delhi because of the artwork painted by renowned Mexican artist Senkoe.

“Any person who drives upon the GT Road will see slogans, quotations, colourful paint jobs on the back/front of trucks that ply from Jammu and Kashmir to Kanyakumari. Some of the standard ones are ‘OK TATA’, ‘Horn Please’, ‘Hum Do Hamare Do’, ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’, ‘Use Dipper at Night,’ etc. The trucks are beautifully decorated with artwork done on panels or other parts. Apart from that, cars too are plying with stickers plastered all over them of various countries that the owners have travelled to, the most common being ‘Ï LOVE NEW YORK.’ Bumper stickers are put on cars, stickers which show a picture of a baby in the car, which reads ‘Baby on Board,’ can regularly be seen. Apart from this, advertisements are seen painted upon buses, but such paintjob again would not imply that either the basic colour of the vehicle has been changed, or has been altered in any fashion,” observed the high court while allowing the registration of the car painted with artwork.

Justice Jaishree Thakur passed the order on Tuesday while allowing a petition filed by Ranit Malhotra, a Chandigarh-based lawyer seeking directions to register the vehicle described as Ambassador Grand Harit-C-1800 (BSIII), 2009 Model in his name.
The petitioner had purchased the vehicle from an European Union diplomat posted in Delhi on July 23, 2019. The petitioner obtained a ‘no-objection certificate’ from the registering authorities in Delhi and also completed all formalities before purchasing the vehicle in question. The reason for purchasing the vehicle was the artwork on the body of the car was painted by renowned Mexican street artist Senkoe. The petitioner applied to the authority at Chandigarh for registering the vehicle along with all necessary documents but he was refused on the ground that the colour of the car had been changed from ‘white’ to ‘multicolour’.
The petitioner, however, argued that the body of the car had only been partly painted over.
Hearing all the parties, the high court observed that the reason for denying registration merely on the ground that there is artwork on the body of the vehicle, where the base remains white, defies logic.
“Any reasonable person can easily make out that a white car had some artwork done upon it. Like a canvas with a spray of flowers. The base colour of the canvas would remain as it is,” observed the HC while directing the UT authorities to register the car within two weeks.