The Supreme Court has ordered to allow Public Utility Vehicles which are BS-IV complaint purchased before 31st March, to be registered, subject to scrutiny by Environment Pollution Control Authority.

The bench comprising the Chief Justice SA Bobde, Justices AS Bopanna and Justice V. Ramasubramanian while considering applications for registration of three types of vehicles viz.,

 (1) CNG vehicles

(2) BS-IV compliant vehicles and

(3) BS-VI compliant vehicles for being used for essential public utility services

The bench directed that the CNG Vehicles can be registered since there cannot be any valid rejection to the vehicles, as the emission from these vehicles is within the limits.

 The emission from BS-VI compliant vehicles is within the norms and hence the vehicles purchased on or after 01.04.2020 and which are BS-VI compliant, should also liable to be registered, the court added. Regarding BS-IV vehicles, the bench observed:

“Insofar as BS-IV and BS-VI compliant vehicles are concerned, admittedly BS-VI norms came into force on 01.04.2020. The vehicles purchased upto 31.03.2020 were BS-IV compliant. Admittedly the emission from BS-VI compliant vehicles is within the norms and hence the vehicles purchased on or after 01.04.2020 and which are BS-VI compliant, should also be registered."

“Insofar as vehicles purchased upto 31.03.2020 which are BS-IV compliant are concerned, they must have been registered with the E- Vahan Portal before the cut-off date to establish the date of purchase. If the purchase had been made on or before 31.03.2020 and these vehicles are BS-IV compliant, such vehicles necessary for the Municipal Corporation to carry essential public utility services should also be registered. But such cases shall be scrutinized by the Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA).”

In order to avoid repeated applications being filed before this Court just for the purpose of getting registration, we direct that the EPCA shall scrutiny the pending cases and submit a report to this Court so that a common order could be passed without the necessity for several interlocutory applications. The interlocutory applications stand disposed of in the above terms.

The Court also directed the EPCA to scrutiny the pending cases and submit a report to it so that a common order could be passed.

This news has been reported and prepared by Ms. Suheena Khan & reviewed by Ms. Samreen Ahmed, Research Assistant, Research & Innovation Department, MyLawman.