- Monday, March 10, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
Indian road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday (6) announced at an event in New Delhi that a penalty will be levied on passengers who refuse to wear seatbelt while travelling as rear passengers.
The minister’s words came days after Cyrus Mistry, one of the country’s frontline business tycoons, died in a car crash while going from Ahmedabad in Gujarat to Mumbai, Maharashtra. Reports said that the former chairman of Tata Sons was not wearing the seatbelt while travelling as a rear passenger in an overspeeding vehicle.
Gadkari, who has time and again vowed to make road travel in India safer, said the Indian government will release a notification in the next few days detailing the penalty involved if a rear passenger fails to wear a seatbelt.
“Previously there was a penalty for not wearing seatbelt for the driver and co-passenger only, but we have updated the law to include rear seat passengers as well,” he said.
The minister also said that a beeper for not wearing a seatbelt will go off for the rear seats as well (currently they are only in for the front seats) and that talks over that are already in with various car manufacturers.
