Holding that the health of citizens is far more important than the commercial interests of automobile manufacturers, the Supreme Court on Wednesday banned the sale and registration of vehicles which are not compliant with Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) fuel emission norms from April 1 across the country.
The decision was eagerly awaited by auto majors who had an inventory build-up of 8.8 lakh vehicles in two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four-wheelers and commercial vehicles in Bharat Stage-III (BS-III) categories.
Employing top-notch lawyers, the auto companies prayed for a reasonable time to dispose their stock and argued that law permitted them to manufacture BS-III compliant vehicles till March 31, 2017.
Ending hopes of the companies, Bench of Justices Madan lokur and Deepak Gupta ordered that no BS-III vehicle will be sold by any manufacturer or dealer on or after April 1, 2017. The five-page order further prohibited registering authorities across the country from registering any BS-III vehicle, unless there was proof to suggest that the vehicle was sold before April 1.
The order said that a detailed decision will follow but the short order made it aptly clear that despite having prior notice from the Government and the court that no BS-III vehicles shall be sold beyond April 1, 2017, the companies acted “at their own peril” despite having the technology and technical know-how to produce BS-IV vehicles.
The Bench said, “The number of such vehicles may be small compared to the overall number of vehicles in the country but the health of people is far, far more important than the commercial interests of the manufacturers or the loss they are likely to suffer.”
Even the Government had announced way back in January 2016 that the BS-IV fuel will be available throughout the country from April 1, 2017. While some automobile manufacturers chose to sit back and declined to take any steps, there were other companies such as Maruti Suzuki that switched over to production of BS-IV vehicles, years ago.
Opposing any relaxation to auto companies, amicus curiae Aparajita Singh argued that larger public interest of citizens was at stake beside the fact that the Government had invested about Rs30,000 crore for producing BS-IV fuel. The Court agreed with this argument. It said, “Keeping the larger public interest in mind and the potential health hazard to millions of our country men and women due to increased air pollution, there is no justification for any of the manufacturers not shifting to the manufacture of BS-IV compliant vehicles well before April1, 2017.”