‘Open defiance of courts': Lawyer who fought for a decade to get old vehicles banned on Delhi govt's U-turn

Indian Express

14 hours ago

In 2014, Delhi-based lawyer Vardhaman Kaushik moved the National Green Tribunal (NGT) over the Capital's choking air pollution crisis. A decade and orders from the NGT and Supreme Court later, a no-fuel ban on end-of-life petrol and diesel vehicles has barely lasted three days.
On Thursday, in a letter to the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) — the overarching statutory body for matters concerning air pollution — Delhi Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa had said that it would not be feasible to enforce the ban 'at this juncture', and 'immediate implementation… may be premature and potentially counter-productive'.
The ban came into effect on July 1.
The Delhi government's move has drawn sharp criticism from several quarters.
According to Kaushik, the 'poor implementation' of the ban order is 'an open defiance of courts'. 'The (Supreme Court) judgment (on fuel ban) had come in long ago, in 2018… and it has not been executed,' Kaushik told The Indian Express.
'The fuel ban was only a way to implement the court's directions. The hue and cry over this now doesn't make sense.'
'This is not a new rule. These rules for end-of-life vehicles have been there for a long time. The judgment is not being taken seriously,' Kaushik said, adding that only a few vehicles have been impounded over the years.
Kaushik dismissed the argument that the ban unfairly targets the middle class. 'People who can afford cars and sit in air-conditioned rooms are cribbing at not being able to sell their car at good rates… Their opinion should not matter,' he said.
'The larger population that cannot afford cars bears the brunt of air pollution.'
He insisted that emissions, not the age of the vehicles, should be the focus. However, he underscored that age remains a legitimate proxy. 'Even if an age cap is put aside as suggested by the Environment Minister, the fact remains that a (Bharat Standard) BS III or a BS IV vehicle will always be far more polluting than a BS VI vehicle. The government needs to take a call at this juncture.'
In April 2015, acting on Kaushik's plea, the NGT had laid the legal foundation for phasing out old vehicles from the Capital's roads. In 2018, the Supreme Court banned diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years in Delhi.
The legal backing for the ban was reinforced by the 2018 SC order, which had upheld the NGT order. 'The Transport Departments of NCR will immediately announce that all diesel vehicles more than 10 years old and petrol vehicles more than 15 years old shall not ply in NCR in terms of the order of the National Green Tribunal…,' the order had said.
It also mandated the impounding of violators and directed that lists of such vehicles be published on the websites of the Central Pollution Control Board and respective transport departments.
Following the CAQM's April order on enforcing a fuel ban, a phased rollout was planned, first in Delhi from July 1, then expanded to the districts of Faridabad, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, and Sonipat in November. The plan was to expand the ban to the rest of the NCR from April 1, 2026.