Supreme Court Refuses to Extend Deadline for Sale of BS4 Vehicles

As per a recent report by NDTV, the Supreme court has rejected the plea filed by FADA (Federation of Automobile Dealers Association) demanding a one-month extension to sell BS4 vehicles in the Indian market. The BS6 emission norms will come into effect from April 1, 2020, and after that, no BS4 vehicles would be allowed to be sold or registered in India.

Earlier, the Indian government had announced that they will skip the BS5 emission norms and adopt BS6 emission norms in 2020. The plea that was filed by FADA came for the hearing before a bench of Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta. The counsel that appeared from the association’s side told the bench that – “if the Supreme Court order will be enforced from April 1, 2020, dealers would face the issue of unsold inventory of BS4 vehicles. As there is a slowdown in the automobile industry, kindly allow them to sell BS4 vehicles to clear the stock.”

The bench replied saying that – “the order was passed by the Supreme court one and a half years ago. The carmakers should not have produced BS4 vehicles after that and even after filing this application, they have produced these vehicles. Hence the application is dismissed.”

The court further said that they will not give even one-day extension to sell the BS4 vehicles after the implementation of BS6 emission norms on April 1. The association counsel urged the apex court that their application is a mercy plea but the bench refused to hear it.

Back in October 2018, the Supreme court had said that any extension of time in introducing new emission norms would harmfully impact the health of citizens as pollution has reached critical levels. They said that there would be no compromise on the health of citizens.

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