The Supreme Court has said that no automobile manufacturer will be allowed to sell any BS-IV vehicles after 31 March, 2020. Only vehicles that meet BS-VI emission standards can be sold from 1 April, 2020.
The Bharat Stage VI (or BS-VI) emission norms come into force from 1 April, 2020 across India, leapfrogging emission standards to deal with rising pollution levels across the country.
A bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur had on 27 August, 2018 reserved its order on the issue. Automakers had sought an extension on the date, asking for time till 30 June, 2020 to clear stocks of their older BS-IV compliant vehicles. Heavy vehicle manufacturers had earlier sought time till 30 September, 2020 for the sale of BS-VI non-compliant heavy transport vehicles.
The automobile manufacturers had justified the grace period to sell their vehicles contending that India was leapfrogging from BS-IV emission norms to BS-VI within a short span of time. The manufacturers had argued that they were allowed to manufacture BS-IV vehicles till March 31, 2020 and they should be granted reasonable time to sell their stock.
Additional Solicitor General A N S Nadkarni, who had appeared for the Centre, had told the apex court that the government considered it fit to give three and six months to the manufacturers to sell their stock of BS-IV vehicles after April 1, 2020.
The BS-IV norms have been enforced across the country since April 2017.
In 2016, the Centre had announced that the country would skip the BS-V norms altogether and adopt BS-VI norms by 2020.
(With inputs from PTI)
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