Mandatory vehicle recall: Transport experts are divided

The notification does not cover any loss of life or injury to road users due to product or vehicle failure caused due to the manufacturing defect, says an expert

Effective April 1, 2021 India will usher in the mandatory vehicle recall regime joining host of other countries where recall of a defective automobile is mandatory.  A vehicle recall can be triggered if many consumers of a vehicle report similar type of problem.  Presently, the recall of the defective vehicle is voluntary in India.

Since the voluntary code of vehicle recall took effect in 2012, automakers in India have recalled over 3.4 million vehicles. In 2020, a total of 379,665 units were called back for defects, the highest in three years. This was a sharp jump from 159,992 units that were called back in 2019.

Transport experts have mixed views on the provisions of the new policy. The notification does not cover any loss of life or injury to road users due to product or vehicle failure caused due to the manufacturing defect, says S.P Singh, senior fellow at Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training. It does not have any specific product liability law that puts the onus on the manufacturer whose product has failed to “fully compensate the persons travelling in the defective vehicle or defective vehicle by its failure causes loss of life / injury to other road users or damage to property”.

According to Anil Chikkara, a transport expert, the penalty will help in putting in a “check and balance in place”. It will lead to an improvement in the quality of component and parts as well as vehicles.

The notification specifies the percentage of complaints from owners of motor vehicles of each category that will prompt mandatory recall of vehicles.

Under the new norms, auto manufacturers and importers may have to pay a penalty of Rs10 lakh to Rs1 crore if they fail to call back the defective vehicles even after a mandatory recall.

The rule for testing of vehicles and mandatory recall under the Central Motor Vehicle Act (notified by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways) has a provision to penalize manufacturers if the latter fail to comply.

A portal that is expected to go live on April 1 will have information on recall and be the nodal point for all the stakeholders, said an auto industry executive.

If several of the vehicle owners report an identical defect in a particular vehicle, then the portal manager has to inform the “designated officer” on the same to find out if a mandatory vehicle recall is required.

The number of identical complaints that will trigger such a vehicle recall process varies based on type of vehicles and volumes of vehicles produced.

The Road Transport and Highways Ministry has notified a raft of rules defining procedure for recall of defective motor vehicles, investigation process and officials who can conduct such investigations, obligations of manufacturers, importers and retrofitters, accreditation of testing agencies and type approval procedures.