In a major relief to the automobile sector, the Supreme Court of India has extended the sale period of BS-4 vehicles beyond March 31, 2020 throughout the nation except in the Delhi-NCR region due to the ongoing national lockdown being enforced for a period of 21 days to battle the deadly coronavirus.
Justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta granted this relief while hearing a case through video-conferencing.
For this purpose, the apex court has divided the BS-4 vehicles into two categories. The first category comprises of vehicles sold before March 31, 2020 but not registered and the second category consists of the unsold inventory of vehicles.
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The Court has permitted the registration of all vehicles in the first category after the national lockdown ends.
In the second category which consists of unsold BS-4 inventory, dealers are permitted to sell 10% of the total inventory within a fixed period of time.
The fixed time period will be revealed in the detailed judgement.
According to the Advocates, the time limit could be fixed at around two weeks.
However, this relief has not been granted to automobile dealers from the Delhi-NCR region due to the high pollution that was witnessed in the region surrounding the National Capital Region last winter.
All vehicles that are manufactured or sold from April 1, 2020 will have to confirm to the BS-6 emission standards set by the Central Pollution Control Board under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change.