Association to move Supreme Court over ban on sun films

MANGALORE: The Car Owners and Consumers' Association (COCA) will file a review petition in the Supreme Court with regard to the ban on the use of sun films on four-wheelers.
The petition will be filed by advocate Padma Prasad Hegde when the court re-opens after vacation. He told TOI that the court banned films on the basis of a PIL filed by Avishek Goenka without hearing other parties involved.
"There are lakhs of consumers and car owners who use these films, who were not heard at the time of passing the order. The matter should have been given wide publicity before passing the order,'' he said.
According to him in areas like the coast where temperatures are high, sun films are needed to cut the harshness of the sun and also to improve cooling efficiency. "In the absence of which more fuel will be spent on cooling. Moreover, we are not asking for dark tints, but within the permissible limits of the Motor Vehicle Act,'' he added.
A bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar went by the limits prescribed in the MV Act and said anything beyond the visual light transmission (VLT) limit of 70% for the front and rear windshields and 50% for the side windows would be punishable.
Hegde added that not all could afford manufactured tinted glasses which cost a bomb. The decision came on a PIL filed by Avishek Goenka, who had complained that cars with black films on window panes were being increasingly used for crimes, including sexual assault of women.
Hegde said, "We want to place all facts on record before the court."
Association president Mukesh Hegde said that only high-end cars come with tinted glass. "Tinted films are affordable by all and films within VLT should be allowed,'' he said.