Driving Licence Must Be Valid and Subsisting on Cut-Off Date; Statutory Renewal Periods Lack Retrospective Effect.

Applicants applied for the post of Constable (Driver) Male in the Delhi Police pursuant to a recruitment notice dated 08.07.2022.

Clause 6(c) of the notification required candidates to possess a valid Heavy Motor Vehicle (HMV) driving license as of the closing date for applications (29.07.2022).

While the applicants had been issued licenses previously, their licenses had expired prior to the cutoff date and were either under the process of renewal or renewed after the deadline.

The respondents refused to allow the applicants to participate in the Trade Test/Skill Test on the grounds that they did not possess valid licenses on the crucial date.

1. Whether the applicants possessed a valid HMV driving license on the closing date of the application (29.07.2022) to satisfy the essential eligibility criteria

2. Whether the renewal of a driving license after the cutoff date can relate back to the date of expiry to maintain continuity under the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019

The court primarily applied Section 14 and Section 15 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, as amended by the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019.

The court relied on the Supreme Court ruling in Telangana State Level Police Recruitment Board v. Penjarla Vijay Kumar (2025), which established that following the 2019 Amendment, the 30-day grace period under the old Section 14 was omitted, meaning a license does not continue after expiry even for a single day.

It further applied the principle from Delhi Police Anr. v. Sudheer Kumar (2026), affirming that eligibility conditions as of the cutoff date are sacrosanct and cannot be diluted on equitable considerations such as administrative delays in renewal.

The Tribunal reasoned that the 2019 Amendment to the Motor Vehicles Act fundamentally altered the nature of license renewals. Under the amended Section 15(1), if an application for renewal is made within one year before or after expiry, the license is renewed with effect from the "date of its renewal," not the date of expiry.

Consequently, there is a "legal disability" or an interregnum during which the holder is incompetent to drive.

The Tribunal examined the tabulated data of the applicants and found that on the crucial date of 29.07.2022, their licenses were either expired or the renewal had not yet been finalized.

The Tribunal rejected the applicants' plea for "beneficial interpretation" or COVID-19 related relaxations, citing the Supreme Court’s stance that the requirement of "continuous" possession of a license is a threshold criterion intended to ensure regular driving practice and cannot be waived even if a candidate passes a practical driving test.

The court answered the issues in the negative, stating that post-amendment, renewal does not operate retrospectively to cover the period of expiry. Accordingly, the Original Applications (OAs) were dismissed as devoid of merit, and no order as to costs was made.