The Meghalaya High Court has directed the State government to study the allegations made by a petitioner after the latter claimed that no overloaded truck was detected during a spot inspection carried out in 24 weighbridges across the State.
On May 8, the petitioner had disputed the report of the State when it was filed before the division bench of Chief Justice Indra Prasanna Mukerji and Justice Wanlura Diengdoh.
Dr. P. Agarwal, the Advocate for the petitioner, Tennydard M Marak, in a rejoinder on Thursday stated that there is total absence of weighbridges at vantage points and in few of them there is no facility to weigh the load carried by trucks.
“It is simply done manually and, in most cases, incorrectly,” the petitioner stated in his rejoinder.
The submission made before the court also said that goods pass to Bangladesh without any proper weighment and that the Dalu weighbridge located at Chaipani, Dalu can only weigh 10 wheeler trucks whereas no weighment could be carried out for 12 wheeler trucks entering India from Bhutan.
The counsel for the state said as far as inter-country transit is concerned between Bhutan, India and Bangladesh, goods are in transit according to the treaty between the three countries and the Indian government cannot act except according to the terms of the treaty and they have limited powers with respect to those goods.
“We are of the view that the revenue loss element is very important for this litigation,” the court said.
It directed the Principal Secretary, Transport Department to properly scrutinize the response of the petitioner and file a counter affidavit by July 5 and take action on the allegations made.
The next hearing in the PIL has been listed on July 7, 2025.
