Supreme Court bans sale of BS-III vehicles from April 2017

The apex court has directed all the automobile manufacturers to stop selling BS-III vehicles in the country from April 1, 2017.

The Supreme Court has banned the sale and registration of Bharat Stage or BS-III vehicles in the country from April 2017. The court’s decision will mean that around 820,000 new vehicles – a majority of which are two-wheelers – will be stuck in inventory.

A bench of headed by justice Madan B Lokur and justice Deepak Gupta rejected the plea of automobile manufacturers for extending the time needed to dispose of BS-III vehicles saying, “The number of such vehicles may be small compared to the overall number of vehicles in the country but the health of the people is far, far more important than the commercial interests of the manufacturers.”  In addition to that, the court also said the manufacturers were already aware of the fact that only BS-IV vehicles will be allowed to sell after April 2017, but even so, they failed to meet the deadline.

The court has also rejected Centre’s plea, wherein the government argued that only the production of BSIII vehicles should be banned, and not the sale.

The automobile fraternity, however, seems to be ready for the switchover. Commenting on the development, Vinod K. Dasari, MD and CEO, Ashok Leyland, said, “Contrary to the various reports in the media about Ashok Leyland having to take a huge write-off of BS-III inventories, the Company clarifies that in fact, the impact will be minimal. Ashok Leyland has been making BS-IV vehicles since 2010 and has sufficient capability and capacity to make BS-IV vehicles.”

“Given the current demand, the majority of the vehicles in the pipeline have already been sold.  Some more will be sold in the next couple of days where we have customer orders.  Of the little inventory that we expect to remain beyond this, we will export them to other markets where we have a significant presence and still operate on BS-III norms. Finally, for any other vehicles still leftover, the Company confirms that it will be able to easily upgrade them to BS-IV at minimal cost,” he added.

While most of the passenger cars already meet BS-IV norms since 2010, the current ruling will majorly impact the commercial vehicle and two-wheeler segments of the country. As for the future, India will leapfrog to BS-VI norms in 2020, skipping BS-V norms in the process.

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