SC allows BS IV vehicles sale for 10 days after lockdown
15,000 cars, 12,000 commercial vehicles to be sold within just 10 days
In the wake of the Covid19 lockdown, the Supreme Court on Friday permitted the sale of 10% of the unsold BS IV vehicles within 10 days of the lifting of the lockdown with a caveat that these vehicles would not be sold in Delhi NCR. The last date for the sale of BS IV vehicles as per 2018 top court order is March 31, 2020.
Observing that vehicle dealers want to take “advantage of a few days lockdown” in March on account of corona, a bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Deepak Gupta said that the BS IV vehicles that have been sold prior to lockdown could be registered after it was lifted.
Relaxing its order on a plea by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association, the court said that it understood the “psychology of businesses, dealers”.
Observing in the course of the hearing that there was “no point extending time for BS IV vehicles, burdening environment further”, the court said,
“Understand frailty of humans.”
The top court permitted the automobile dealers to sell 10% of their unsold inventory of BS IV vehicles by relaxing its October 24, 2018 order.
The top court had on October 24, 2018, ordered that from April 1, 2020, only Euro VI fuel complaint vehicles would be permitted to be sold and registered across the country.
The court by its said order had said that “No motor vehicles conforming to the emission standards Bharat Stage IV shall be sold or registered from April 1, 2020.”
It was contended that
15,000 passenger cars,
12,000 commercial vehicles, seven lakh 2-wheelers were at stake due to BS IV deadline.
The court asked the automobile dealers to submit on affidavit the details of sold and unsold inventories, within one week.
While Additional Solicitor General A.N.S. Nadkarni, appeared for the Centre through video conferencing from Goa, Senior Advocate K.V. Vishwanathan, appearing for FADA, linked up from his office here. During the hearing, Vishwanathan said that the deadline needs to be extended due to the ongoing lockdown and economic slowdown faced by the country due to coronavirus pandemic.
The top court said that it cannot keep extending time for BS IV vehicles and dealers should be ready to sacrifice and do something for the country's environment.
Nadkarni said that people might have faced hardship in registering their vehicles sold before March
31 due to the lockdown and therefore time till end of April or May, be provided.
The bench disposed of two applications filed by FADA and Honda India seeking modification of apex court’s order of October 24, 2018, by which it had fixed the March 31,
2020 deadline for sale and registration of BS IV compliant vehicles.
On February 14, the top court had rejected the plea filed by an association of automobile dealers seeking extension of the March 31, 2020 deadline by one more month to sell Bharat Stage-IV norms compliant vehicles across the country.
In 2016, the Centre had announced that India would skip the BS-V norms altogether and adopt BS-VI norms by
2020.
In its October 2018 order, the top court had said that any extension of time in introducing new emission norms would adversely impact the health of citizens as the pollution has reached an “alarming and critical” level.
It had said there cannot be any compromise on the health of citizens which has to take precedence over the “greed” of a few automobile manufacturers who want to stretch the time-line to make a “little more money”.
The court had passed the order in 2018 while deciding the issue of whether BS-IV compliant vehicles should be permitted to be sold in India after March
31, 2020. Meanwhile, with a huge reduction in vehicular movement and factories being shut amid lockdown, the air quality of the national capital has significantly improved in just the first three days of the lockdown.
Delhi, which is infamous for its terrible air quality index (AQI), has seen the AQI in major parts of the city drop to “good” and “satisfactory” levels. The AQI, which is maintained by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), recorded a “satisfactory” reading of 50 in Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday.
According to CPCB data, this was the lowest in months. The same area had regularly recorded numbers above 300 in February this year.
South Delhi’s R.K. Puram area saw the AQI drop even further to 46 on Friday, according to the World Air Quality Project which aggregates data from several sources such as the Indian Meteoro-logical Depar-tment and CPCB. As per the categorisation of the CPCB, 46 qualified as “good”.
Other areas were the AQI reaching above 200 is common also saw the AQI drop to below “satisfactory” levels. Popular market place Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi which usually records high air pollution levels also witnessed significant improvement in the quality of air In Anand Vihar, the AQI was 70.