SC lifts ban on registering diesel vehicles in Delhi, NCR

R Sedhuraman

Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, August 12

It will be business as usual for luxury car makers as the Supreme Court on Friday lifted the eight-month-long ban on the sale of high-end diesel cars, including sports-utility vehicles (SUVs), with 2000 cc engines and above in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR).  

A three-member Bench headed by Chief Justice TS Thakur allowed the resumption of the sale on the condition that car manufacturers pay 1 per cent of the vehicle cost as green cess, to be known as environment protection charge.

The cess would be collected by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and kept in a separate account in a public sector bank till the case pertaining to sale of diesel cars was disposed of by the apex court, the Bench said. Justices AK Sikri and R Banumathi were the other members of the Bench.

The cess would be calculated on the ex-showroom price of each car. The transport authority should register such cars only upon production of the cess payment receipt by the buyer, it clarified.

The Bench had banned the sale of such diesel cars on December 16, 2015, as part of efforts to bring down the level of air pollution in Delhi and the NCR. It was then felt that big diesel cars were primarily responsible for the rising air pollution.

Luxury car makers subsequently approached the apex court, pleading that diesel cars were increasingly being used all over the world as governments realised that diesel was not the main culprit for pollution. New technologies used in refining crude and making diesel car engines had made it a safe fuel. In fact, the fumes emitted by these vehicles were better than the quality of Delhi air, they had contended while pleading against the SC ban.

Today, the Bench clarified that the option of increasing the cess beyond one per cent would remain open, but this would only have prospective effect. It would also hear the government’s arguments that the judiciary had no power to levy any cess and doing so amounted to transgressing the executive’s exclusive domain earmarked in the Constitution.