The apex court vacated the embargo on registration of such vehicles after taking on record the affidavits of Mercedes, Toyota and its dealers as well as that of Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) offering to deposit one per cent of the price of the vehicles as Environment Protection Charge (EPC) before the registration.
The apex court said that the registration of the vehicle would be done by the Regional Transport Officer on the satisfaction that one per cent of the cost of the vehicle has been deposited with CPCB by the vehicle manufacturers/dealers/ sub-dealers.
The bench, also comprising Justices A K Sikri and R Banumathi, said it will decide later whether green cess can be levied on diesel vehicles of below 2000cc engine capacity.
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As the hearing was concluding, the bench orally clarified that any enhancement or reduction of green cess would not have a retrospective effect.
While making it clear that the order was modified only to the extent that registration of such vehicles would be done on the deposit of the one per cent of the amount of the cost of the vehicle towards environment protection cess, the bench said, "Let the things start moving."
Mercedes-Benz through senior advocate Mohan Parasaran and Gopal Subramanian, had made the offer of one per cent as environment compensation charge which was also backed by Toyota through its counsel Gopal Jain and Vijay Sondhi. They were joined by SIAM through senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi.