COIMBATORE: As many as 32 regional transport officer (RTO) posts have been lying vacant in Tamil Nadu for several months, forcing serving officers to hold additional charge of multiple offices — a practice a consumer organisation has termed illegal and administratively unworkable.K Kathirmathiyon, secretary of Coimbatore Consumer Cause, said several RTOs had been managing two or more jurisdictions simultaneously for months. In some cases, it had been for more than two years, he said. “An officer is able to visit the additional office only two or three days a week. One officer cannot realistically run two offices. This delays work in both places,” he said, alleging that prolonged gaps in supervision could encourage the influence of brokers and lead to malpractices.While temporary additional charge arrangements might be justified during short transitions, continuing them for long periods defeated the purpose of having separate regional transport offices, he said. He argued that the situation was not merely an administrative inconvenience but also created legal vulnerabilities in statutory decision-making.Citing Rule 143 of the Tamil Nadu Motor Vehicles Rules, Kathirmathiyon said regional transport authorities delegated specific statutory functions directly to RTOs, including grant and renewal of permits, issue of temporary permits and approvals for various transport categories such as goods carriages, autorickshaws and private service vehicles. Under administrative law principles, such delegated statutory powers could not be further sub-delegated to subordinate staff.The petition alleged that in offices where an RTO held multiple charges, digital approvals on the Parivahan portal were reportedly being processed using the credentials of, or by, subordinates such as superintendents or assistants, with the RTO later signing printed permits. If electronic approvals were made by officials lacking statutory authority, permits could become open to judicial challenge, the organisation warned, adding that a subsequent physical signature might not cure defects arising from unauthorised statutory determinations.In a petition submitted to the secretary of the home department on Friday, the organisation urged the state govt to immediately fill all vacant RTO posts, ensure full-time local charge through full additional charge where unavoidable and issue strict instructions against the sub-delegation of statutory powers.
