Can a vintage car keep its original registration number? What India's VA rules say

If your car or motorcycle is already registered in India and is over 50 years old, the rules say you keep the number it has. The VA series plate is meant for fresh registrations, not as a replacement for a number a car has carried for decades. Rule 81B(3) of the Central Motor Vehicles (Fifteenth Amendment) Rules, 2021 is explicit: all vehicles already registered as a Vintage Motor Vehicle shall continue to retain the original registration number and registration plate intact without any change.

That is the law. The practice at some RTOs has been different, and that gap is what sends owners to clubs, and in one case to the High Court.

What the 2021 rules actually set up

The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways notified the Fifteenth Amendment Rules on 15 July 2021. A vintage motor vehicle is a two or four wheeler at least 50 years old from its original first date of registration, with no substantial modification to chassis, body shell or engine.

Registration or re-registration is applied for on Form 20, with an insurance policy, the fee, the old registration certificate if the vehicle is already registered in India, and a Bill of Entry if it was imported. For a fresh registration the registering authority allots a mark in the format XX VA YY ****, where XX is the state code, VA stands for vintage, YY is a two letter series and the last four digits run from 0001 to 9999. So a Mumbai car would read something like MH VA AA 3112.

The certificate is valid for ten years and then renewable in five year blocks. Rule 81E keeps the use restricted: a vintage vehicle cannot be driven on the roads for regular purposes and cannot be used commercially. Display, rallies, exhibitions, technical research, refuelling and maintenance runs are what it is for. On a sale, both buyer and seller must inform their state transport authorities within 90 days.

Why owners still lose their numbers

The trouble is at the counter and on the portal. In Nagpur in July 2022, the Central India Vintage Automotive Association's secretary Dr Anjan Chatterjee said the RTO was re-registering all vintage vehicles irrespective of whether they already had valid registrations, applying Rule 81B(1) to everyone instead of only to vehicles without papers. The Assistant RTO, Harshal Dake, said only vehicles with no papers had been re-registered. Rule 81B(4) also exempts vintage vehicles from the High Security Registration Plate requirement under Rule 50, which is a second thing owners report being told wrongly.

The sharpest example is in Delhi. Parmeet Singh Bhalla, the sixth owner of a 1965 General Motors Cadillac registered on 20 September 1972 as DHB 0059, applied through the Wazirpur registering authority, deposited the ₹20,000 fee, and was issued DL VA 1317 instead of his old mark. His petition argues this violates Rule 81B(3) and (4), and says officials cited a lack of any provision in the VAHAN portal to retain the old number. On 25 October 2024 Justice Prateek Jalan issued notice to the Centre, MoRTH and NIC and sought replies in four weeks, with the matter listed for 24 February 2025. We could not find a reported final order.

What to do before you file

Keep the original RC and tax token. The old paperwork is part of the car's identity and is your only proof of the number you are entitled to keep. Put the rule numbers in writing in your application, specifically 81B(3) for the number and 81B(4) for the HSRP exemption, and ask for any refusal in writing. Clubs matter here. It was the Heritage Motoring Club of India's case that got vintage and classic cars exempted from the NGT's Delhi NCR ban on 15 year old vehicles on 19 December 2017, on the condition that they are registered under the Motor Vehicles Act and used for exhibitions, rallies and the like. A club letter and a rally entry are useful documents to have in the file.

Sources

• Central Motor Vehicles (Fifteenth Amendment) Rules, 2021
• New registration rules for vintage vehicles creating confusion among owners, The Hitavada
• Delhi HC seeks reply from Centre in plea by vintage car owner seeking permission to retain old registration number
• Indian government announces new registration rules for vintage and classic vehicles, Autocar India
• Vintage and classic cars permanently exempt from NGT ban, Autocar India