SC puts on hold BS-4 vehicles’ sale

Finds sale in lockdown unusual

Taking a note of an “unusual number” of vehicles being sold during the lockdown period, the Supreme Court on Friday suspended the registration of all BS-IV vehicles. The registration is put on hold till further orders.

A bench of Justices Arun Mishra, B.R.Gavai and V. Krishna Murari directed the government and car dealers to place before it all the advertisements for BS-IV vehicles since March this year.

The Bench said it needed to verify the details regarding the sale and registration of BS-4 vehicles during the lockdown period. The court direction to the government and the car dealers came after the bench perused an affidavit by the road, transport and highways ministry said that there were reasons to believe that fraudulent activities have happened in order to sell BS-IV cars after the Mar 3, 2020 1 deadline.

The court said this in the course of the hearing of a plea by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations

◗ (FADA) seeking relaxation of deadline to pave the way to clear the unsold inventory of the BS IV vehicles.

The Supreme Court was earlier irked over the violation of its order and had pulled up the automobile dealers association by saying that BS-IV vehicles were sold during the lockdown in the last week of March and after March 31 also.

The apex court, in 2018, had ordered vehicle manufacturers to manufacture and sell only Bharat Stage-VI norms compliant vehicles from Apr 1, 2020.

In March FADA had approached the court seeking more time to sell off their Bharat Stage-IV inventory which was adversely affected in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdown.

The top court had in April 2018 directed the manufacturers to produce and sell only BS-VI norms compliant vehicles from April 1, 2020.