
Most of the people are unaware of the process and liabilities of selling a car to an another person. To them, signing the transfer certificate alone could have finished the job. However, in reality, the ownership records remain unchanged even if another person owns or drives the vehicle. A three-judge Supreme Court bench has cleared the statement in the lights of recently emerged Vijay Kumar case. According to the SC bench, "even the registered owner transfers the vehicle, he continues to be the original owner in RTO records, then he or she would not stand away from the liability of the vehicle.
However, in real life practice, middle men or brokers control the second-hand markets in the country. They often try to sell vehicles indirectly to the second person with or without the knowledge of actual seller. In such a scenario the seller may not be aware of the ownership change and other related liabilities as the mediator himself may take the responsibility to get incentives. In certain cases, the broker himself buys the vehicle with transfer certificate and tries to sell it to a third party without the knowledge of the seller.
In order to avoid such confusion in the buying and selling of second-hand vehicles, complete possession of the vehicle should be handed over only after completing the paper works. The procedures can be even smoothen by taking all these formalities to online on the eyes of RTO so that innocent sellers can be restrained from the liabilities.