Steve Jobs never drove a car with a licence plate. Many of our ministers and MLAs ride cars without them too. While the Apple boss had found a leeway in California vehicle laws that allowed anyone with a brand new car six months to affix the number plate and thus kept exchanging his signature silver Mercedes SL55 AMG for another identical one before each deadline expired, Jharkhand’s lawmakers don’t just dodge the law, they brilliantly consider themselves above it.

Ever since Ranchi found itself a new traffic SP, a concerted crackdown has begun on cars without registration plates as well as those with fancy ones having reflective background and arty fonts. Even policemen using blue-and-red number plates without permission have been fined by SP (traffic) Karthik S. who launched the drive from March 5. So far, 500 motorists have been fined for various licence plate violations under the Motor Vehicles Act.

But then, the laws are either different for those warming up our Assembly benches or perhaps our men in khaki actually cower before fists of power. 

VIJAY DEO JHA, along with shutterbug PRASHANT MITRA, finds out why our ministers and MLAs don’t use proper number plates