This writ petition has been instituted calling in question the endorsement dated 14-09-2010, issued by the Registering Authority under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, declining to register the vehicle purchased by the writ petitioner by way of public auction conducted by the 2nd respondent herein.

2. The facts which are relevant for our inquiry are; the 2nd respondent Superintendent of Prohibition & Excise, Kadapa, has put to public auction a truck bearing registration No. T.N.09-AT-8474, on 29-07-2010. The writ petitioner was found to Je the highest bidder thereat and his bid for Rs. 3,70,000/- has been accepted. He has also paid a sum of 53,650/- representing 14.5% towards Value Added Tax (VAT) on purchase of the said truck. On 03-09-2010, the writ petitioner submitted a representation enclosing thereto Form No.32 and all other documents including the sale certificate issued by the 2nd respondent and sought for registration of the said vehicle in his favour. Considering the said representation, the impugned endorsement has been issued on 14-09-2010, bringing out that the Commissioner of Transport, through his Circular Memorandum No.1388/VI/2009, dated 18-03-2010, pointed out that whenever a motor vehicle is seized by the State Government or the central Government and it is confiscated and later on proposed for auction, the said auctioning authority should contact the nearest registering authority and find out the genuineness of the vehicle and in case the vehicle is found to be a non-genuine one or a bogus one, the said vehicle should be sold by the auctioning authority as scrap only and that such vehicles shall not be registered by the registering authority. Hence, this writ petition came to be instituted.

3. Heard Sri B. Chandrasekhar, the learned counsel for the writ petitioner, the learned Government Pleader for Transport and the learned Government Pleader for Prohibition & Excise.

4. The learned counsel for the writ petitioner would submit that the 2nd respondent has conducted the auction, obviously, after taking the views of the registering authority into account and consideration and that it has issued a certificate vouching that the vehicle has been confiscated by the Excise Department and it is involved in an excise offence and hence, it is put to public auction. The learned counsel would further submit that, after thus acquiring the vehicle, the writ petitioner has spent considerable amount for bringing it to roadworthy condition and hence, the 1st respondent is liable to register the vehicle in his name after assessing its road worthiness and the registering authority cannot decline to register the vehicle.

5. The learned Government Pleader for Transport would submit that in terms of Section 52 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (henceforth referred to as 'the Act'), no owner of a motor vehicle shall either alter or modify the engine or the chassis of a motor vehicle without obtaining prior permission from the registering authority and if it is found that any vehicle owner has changed \ modified its engine or chassis un-authorizedly, such vehicles cannot be allowed to be brought on roads and be allowed to ply. Further, the learned Government Pleader would contend that in the instant case, when the Deputy Commissioner of Transport, Kadapa, has ascertained from her counter parts of the Tamil Nadu State, it is revealed that the registration number T.N.09-AT-8474, in fact, belongs to a Honda motor cycle and it does not belong to any Ashok Leyland truck at all. Further, the Deputy Transport Commissioner has been informed that neither the engine number nor the chassis number of the truck in question are matching when compared with the data available with the Transport Department of the neighboring Tamil Nadu State. Therefore, the learned Government Pleader would contend that the truck in question is a bogus one, which is the result of tampering by its previous owner and thus, Section 52 of the Act, has been breached. Hence,