Legal Cases of Automobile Industry

7/29/2019 Legal Cases of Automobile Industry

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Legal Cases of Automobile Industry

Saurabh Chauhan-109

Nirmit Sehgal-105

Bhuwan Chopra-90Rakshet Sharma-71

Jatin Aneja-120


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Introduction:Automobile industry

One of the largest markets in the world

India's passenger car and commercial vehiclemanufacturing industry is the sixth largest in the world

after overtaking brazil, with an annual production ofmore than 3.9 million units in 2011.

As of 2010, India is home to 40 million passengervehicles

According to the Society of Indian AutomobileManufacturers, annual vehicle sales are projected toincrease to 4 million by 2015


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Toyota Case

Toyota recalled millions of vehicles in 2009 and 2010 related to charges that throttlescould jam in the open position.

Toyota created a fund for retrofitting 3.2 million Toyota and Lexus cars withtechnology that made them easier to stop in a panic situation, as part of the settlement

in a U.S. District Court case that sought class-action status. Owners of models that

were not retrofitted received cash payouts. And those who sold their vehicles in late2009 and all of 2010 were eligible for compensation due to lowered resale value due to

the issue.

In all, the company said the agreement affected 16 million owners of vehicles with

electronic throttle controls, whether or not they were part of the recalls.

Toyota maintained that the bulk of unintended acceleration cases were due to floormats that slid underneath accelerators and became trappedand not the result of

electronic defects in the cars' engine computers.

After years of litigation and probes, Toyota committed a $1.1 billion settlement to

resolve lawsuits alleging "unintended acceleration" in some Toyota and Lexus models.


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Maruti-Suzuki manesar case

On 18 july 2012,auto factory workers inmarutismanesar plantattacked supervisors and started a fire that killed a company officialand injured 100 managers including 2 japanes expatriates.

The attack was allegedly influenced by:

A caste slur by a supervisor against a worker. And failed negotiations about employee regularization.

The company has faced several incidents of employee protest butnever of such scale and violence.

This incident was the worst ever for suzukisince it began itsoperations in india in 1983.

The violence at Maruti Suzuki India's Manesar plant in July wasnot instigated from outside, but was due to internal issues betweenmanagement and workers,


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Chargesheets were being filed against 145 persons and atotal of 300 witnesses were interviewed to file the report,which runs into 3,000 pages.

The main charges included murder, attempt to murderand destruction of property.

A total of over 140 workers, including leaders of MarutiSuzuki Workers Union, were arrested by the police.

The company declared a lockout at the plant on July 21and was lifted on August 21. During the lockout theoverall production loss was pegged at around Rs 1,400crore.


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Singur land case: Tata Motors moved apexcourt

Tata won the singur land case In a major blow to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, the

Calcutta High Court ruled in favour of Tata Motors, holding

the Singur Act as unconstitutional and void. The Act empowered the

West Bengal Government to reclaim nearly 1,000 acres at theabandoned Tata Motors factory in Singur and returning part of the

997-acre Nano plot to unwilling farmers.

Tata Motors was given 997 acres at Singur, when the Left front

governmentwas in power, to manufacture the worlds cheapest car

Nano by acquiring land from 13,000 farmers, of which 2,000 refused to

accept the compensation and demanded their 400 acres back.

After coming to power in May 2011, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee

had the SingurAct passed in the Assembly as one of her governments

first major legislations.


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She passed a Singur Land Rehabilitation and Development Act 2011which allowed her to recover the land under dispute and redistributeabout 400 acres to farmers who were originally reluctant to partwith their land for the Tata project

At that time Tata Motors had said it was not possible to build a

factory and ancillaries on 600 acres. Holding Trinamool Congressresponsible for driving out the Nano project from Singur, TataMotors had accused the state of trying to over-reach the judicialprocess and forcibly taking back the land, which was legitimatelyallotted to the company by the Left Front government.


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The judges, said the Singur Act has been held void as thePresidents assent was not taken. The court has,

however, given the West Bengal government two monthsto appeal in the Supreme Court.

The Trinamool Congress, which was then the mainopposition in West Bengal, had demanded return of 400acre to farmers unwilling to give land for the project.

Tata Motors had moved to Sanand in Gujarat in 2008citing law and order problems, but had kept possession ofthe leased land at Singur.


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