Maruti is certainly not for car aspirants with disability

Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) has come up with a unique way to discriminate drivers with disability. The Government of India gives the people with disabilities there legitimate right to avail excise duty concession on the purchase of a new car but MSIL has a problem with that. They want excuses to deny this and they have come up with a unique way of discrimination. They will not grant this concession to customers with right leg disability.

Discriminatory Guidelines by Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL)

The Guidelines by MSIL for booking and purchasing a new car is given at this link. The salient points are summarised below

Despite the clear cut guidelines by the Central Government, often the customers with disabilities are harassed. This is in part due to lack of awareness, confusion of excise duty waiver with road tax exemption and discrimination by manufacturers. Take for example the case of biggest manufacturer in India -MSIL. They provide the excise duty concession only to customers with left leg disability which is discriminatory.The Government guidelines no where mentions between right and leg disability. This is the creation of MSIL only and they were slammed by High Court of Rajasthan on the same issue in the Vijay Raj Khariwal vs Union of India & Ors. CW Case No. 2697 of 2005. The readers can read the judgement and decide on there own. Same thing happened with Dr Satendra Singh from Delhi which was prominently highlighted by the Times of India.

For availing manufacturer certificate, MSIL insists on submitting photograph 'showing' the disability. Why? Why do they want to see the photo of an amputee female above thigh when she has a medical certificate already. This is also infringement of right to privacy as well as violation of Disability Amendment Rules 2009. Dr Satendra Singh has already written to both Deputy GM, CRM, MSIL as well as Secretary, Department of Heavy Industries on this. One can read the letters here. Incidentally, it was Dr Singh only who challenged similar discriminatory proforma asking for photo 'showing' disability from UPSC and IIT JEE aspirants. Both had to withdraw these after his petition with Court of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities.

So MSIL is a detective agency. They do not believe the medical certificate issued by a doctor from a Govt hospital. They also do not believe in the disability certificate issued to the person by a medical board constituted in Govt hospital. They want to see the 'photo showing disability' and recheck by there doctor. Is the minimal excise duty concession being given from there pocket? Who gave them this ridiculous authority?

This further proves, why MSIL is hell bent on harassing disabled persons. Look at the extra document they need which are nowhere mentioned in the Govt circulars. This is the response of the top manufacturer in India. After publication of the story in TOI, Dr Singh got a call from a reader Dr Girish Gupta that same thing happened with him for one month when he wanted to get the exemption on Ciaz. After getting frustrated he switched to Hyundai's Creta and got all these excise duty concession in just a day. So this is deliberate attempt on part of MSIL to harass people with disabilities. Shame on them!

#MarutiNOTforDisabled