Supreme Court Stays NGT's Direction To State Of West Bengal To Phase Out Public Transport Vehicles Below BS-IV Within 6 Months

While issuing notice, a Bench comprising Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and A.S. Oka stayed the operation of the impugned direction.

Senior Counsel, Ms. Manninder Acharya appearing on behalf of the State Government informed the Bench that the State is aggrieved by the aforesaid direction of the NGT, which implies that after six months only BS-VI vehicles would ply in the State of West Bengal including the cities of Kolkata and Howrah. She submitted that no motor vehicles that conforms to the emission standard of Bharat Stage-IV were to be sold or registered in the country after 01.04.2020. She argued that registration of BS-IV vehicles was permitted till March, 2020, so suppose a vehicle was registered just before the cut off date, it would not complete 15 years in the next six months. It was submitted that the 15 year period has to be counted from the date of registration, otherwise it will make the vehicle unusable even before it attains 15 years.

In 2008, the Calcutta High Court had passed directions to phase out commercial vehicles that are more than 15 years old. Similar orders were passed by the NGT on 11.08.2016 and 01.10.2020.

The NGT, in its impugned order dated 26.07.2022, had passed a slew of directions to the State of West Bengal, one of them being the phasing out of old vehicles, precisely, vehicles more than 15 years old. The NGT had noted that a 'few lakhs' private and commercial vehicles older than 15 years ply in the cities of West Bengal. Thereafter, it had directed that all the old commercial and private vehicles in the State be phased out within a period of six months. It had further directed -

"...while phasing out of the old vehicles, a move towards use of cleaner and greener technology with the introduction of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Buses/Electric Buses may be expedited."

[Case Title: State of West Bengal v. Subhas Dutta C.A. No. 8564/ 2022]