Bombay High Court quashes order blacklisting second hand sale of BS-IV compliant vehicles beyond Supreme Court deadline

The Bombay High Court recently quashed all blacklisting orders issued by the Regional Transport Office (RTO) against several Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) compliant vehicles which were sold as second-hand sales after the Supreme Court mandated deadline of March 31, 2020 [Micropark Logistics Pvt Ltd vs. The State of Maharashtra & Anr.]. .The Court directed that cancelled registrations of such vehicles be restored by the transport authorities at the earliest.The order came in a bunch of petitions filed by vehicle owners, primarily those associated with distributors challenging the orders of blacklisting and cancelling registration of their BS-IV compliant vehicles. They claimed that they had registered the sale of their vehicles before the Supreme Court deadline. However, the authorities refused to register the automobiles claiming the vehicle owners had missed the Supreme Court imposed deadline of March 31, 2020.In 2018, the Supreme Court had directed the Central and State governments not to permit sale or registration of motor vehicles conforming to the emission standard BS-IV across the country with effect from April 1, 2020 in order to facilitate the transition from BS-IV to BS-VI technology.Both BS-IV and BS-VI are unit emission norms that set the maximum permissible levels for pollutants that an automotive or a two-wheeler exhaust can emit..The road transport authorities had opposed the plea in High Court, stating that the dealers and distributors had registered the BS-IV compliant vehicles in the names of their directors, owners, or persons connected with them before the deadline to get around the Supreme Court's prohibition.They sought to register the sales of these vehicles to outsiders as second sales, since sales by distributors after March 31, 2020 were all illegal..The Division Bench of Justices Gautam Patel and Madhav Jamdar, however, directed reinstatement of the revoked registrations."...once these vehicles fall in the class of legitimately registered and permissible BS-IV compliant vehicles, are they prohibited from what is in effect a used-car or second-hand sale. This does not seem to have been prohibited by the Supreme Court orders," the order stated. The apprehension by the authorities that the Supreme Court orders must necessarily result in a prohibition on second-hand sales does not appear to be correct, the Court made it clear. "If such second sales are not allowed (of vehicles complying with the 31st March 2020 deadline), then another, possible absurd and possibly environmentally unacceptable result would occur namely that there would be a large stock of vehicles now in the names of individuals connected with distributorship or dealership which could not be used at all and would have to be turned to scrap or junked without ever being used. We see nothing in the orders passed by the Supreme Court to support such a rigid view," the bench explained..The Bench quashed the blacklisting orders against all vehicles and directed all concerned RTOs to restore the cancelled registrations of the vehicles of the two petitioners.The order clarified that if any vehicle is found be first sold or RTO registration is sought after April 1, 2020, then it would fall afoul of the Supreme Court mandate and was not permitted to be registered, sold or plied on the road..[Read Order]