He said manufacturing vehicles with the old technology was banned, not the sale of existing stocks.He said the government had issued notification in 2015 but no one challenged the Centre's decision and even Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority (EPCA) had not raised any objections. The motor companies are holding a stock of 8,24,275 BS-III vehicles, which includes 96,724 commercial vehicles, 6,71,308 two-wheelers, 40,048 three-wheelers and 16,198 cars. "If EPCA is so concerned about the issue, it should have approached the government to bring change in its draft notification on BS-IV but it did not do so. Urging the top court to allow them to sell the existing stock of vehicles, senior advocates K K Venugopal and A M Singhvi, appearing for the manufacturers, said more than 19 crore old vehicles were plying in the country and selling of 8.2 lakh such vehicles would not make much of a difference. They said contribution to pollution due to these vehicles would be less than 0.01%.

Source: Times of India March 27, 2017 21:01 UTC