SC: No extension for BS-IV vehicles

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the plea filed by an association of automobile dealers seeking extension of the April 1, 2020 deadline by one more month to sell Bharat Stage-IV norms compliant vehicles across the country. The BS-IV norms were enforced since April, 2017. In 2016, the Centre had announced that India would skip the BS-V norms altogether and adopt BSVI norms by 2020.

The Supreme Court on Friday rejected the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations’ (FADA) appeal to extend the deadline for sales of BS-IV vehicles beyond March 31.

The new and stringent BS-VI emission norms are mandated to be implemented from April 1 all over the country.

FADA had asked for a one-month extension of the deadline, which was rejected by the apex court.

The FADA appeal was based on the fact that the auto industry is facing a significant slowdown in both wholesale and retail.

At present, the overall sales for the auto industry in January was 1,739,975 units, down 13.83 per cent, with passenger vehicles at

262,714 units, down 6.2 per cent, commercial vehicles at 75,289 units, down 14.4 per cent, three-wheelers at 60,903 units, up 12.69 cent and two-wheelers at

1,341,005 units, down 16.06 per cent.

The auto dealers lobby had filed the application in Supreme Court on December 18, seeking modification of its October 2018 order, where the apex court ordered that no BS-IV vehicles can be sold after March 31,

2020. Automobile dealers had previously said that they might fail to liquidate the BS-IV inventory before this timeline.

With the new emission norms set to be implemented in less than two months time, several automakers, including market leader Maruti Suzuki, Tata Motors, Hyundai and Mahindra, have already transitioned a major chunk of their product portfolio to BS-VI from BS-IV.

Earlier on Monday, Mahindra had said that it was stuck with some 3,000 BS IV vehicles, as a couple of couple of electronic components were in short-supply over the China lockdown, and might move the apex court for a relaxation of the March 31 deadline to sell the units.

FADA represents over

15,000 automobile dealers having 25,000 dealerships across India and employ over 2.5 million directly and another 2.5 million indirectly.