New Delhi: The owners of diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years is set for a partial reprieve in Delhi, where the state government Thursday wrote a letter to the Commission for Air Quality Management, asking it to remove the refuelling ban on end-of-life (EoL) vehicles, only two days after the ban came into effect.
The refuelling ban should be “put on hold with immediate effect”, said the government letter, following a public backlash against the move since it came into force on 1 July.
However, the EoL vehicles remain banned from plying on Delhi roads, based on two court orders, a 2014 National Green Tribunal order and a 2018 Supreme Court order upholding the NGT decision. The rules still in place are that end-of-life vehicles are not to be driven on Delhi roads or parked in public spaces. In the case of violations, the transport department in Delhi has the authority to impound the vehicles and, if necessary, send them to the scrapping yard.
If impounded, owners who want to recover the EoL vehicles will need to get a No-Objection Certificate (NoC) from the Delhi government after submitting an undertaking to declare with proof that the owners will take it out of Delhi or park it in their private parking spaces in Delhi. Moreover, the owners will need to pay penalties of Rs 10,000 to retrieve four-wheelers and Rs 5,000 for two- or three-wheelers.
In this report, ThePrint explains what the rules, specifically, say on end-of-life vehicles in Delhi-NCR, and what owners can do, along with a backgrounder on the vehicle ban introduced in Delhi to curb pollution.
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Policy for banning old vehicles
A little over a decade ago, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) first banned end-of-life vehicles from driving on Delhi roads due to rising air pollution.
The decision by the principal bench of the NGT came on 26 November 2014 during the hearing of a case, Vardhman Kaushik vs. State of India, involving several sources of air pollution, including emissions from vehicles and construction sites.
The initial NGT order gave the instruction that only diesel and petrol vehicles older than 15 years would remain banned from Delhi roads, and instructed the traffic and transport departments of the Capital to “take appropriate steps following the law, including seizure of the vehicles”.
The NGT, on 7 April 2015, followed up the initial order, ordering vehicle registration authorities in Haryana, UP, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi not to register any diesel vehicles older than 10 years and petrol vehicles older than 15 years, asking officials to provide the tribunal and the city traffic police a list of such vehicles.
However, the authorities did not immediately start enforcing the ban on end-of-life vehicles, or the process of impounding them.
Facing a challenge in the Supreme Court, the NGT order was eventually upheld by the SC in a 2018 case, M.C. Mehta vs. Union of India and others. The 29 October 2018 order passed by the SC directed the city transport department to announce the implementation of the ban. The SC added that the transport department would impound the vehicles violating its order after publishing ads in newspapers to apprise the public.
On 1 January 2022, the transport department took the first step to deregister the old vehicles. By 2024, it had removed nearly 61 lakh EoL vehicles from the registry.
In its circular dated 29 December 2021, the transport department instructed all owners to either turn their EoL vehicles into scrap or retrofit them with electric systems to convert them into pure electric vehicles. Otherwise, it would impound and send the overage vehicles to Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facilities (RVSFs). The department said it was in touch with nearly 12 RVSFs scrapping vehicle parts.
Policy for retrieving vehicles
The enforcement drive to remove overage vehicles from Delhi roads began in 2023. Then, vehicle owners filed writ petitions in the Supreme Court, requesting a procedure for the release of impounded vehicles. On 23 August 2023, the SC ruled that the Delhi government needed to come up with a policy to ensure that owners could get their impounded vehicles back under certain circumstances.
“As there are several vehicles, which have been seized in similar circumstances, in which the owners may be willing to give undertakings, GNCTD (Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi) is directed to frame a policy for the release of such vehicles,” read the SC order.
The order led to the 20 February 2024 Guidelines for handling end-of-life vehicles in public places of Delhi, passed by the transport department. These guidelines are still followed in Delhi-NCR to deal with impounded overage two- or three-wheelers. They lay out exactly how vehicle owners can take their EoL vehicle outside Delhi by submitting an undertaking, and a penalty of Rs 10,000 for four-wheelers and Rs 5,000 for two and three-wheelers.
Instead, if owners want to park it in a private space within Delhi, they will need to provide proof of this parking space, which can not be part of a shared parking lot, and ensure it remains allotted to the owner specifically.
In March 2025, in a bid to enforce the order to remove such vehicles from Delhi roads, the CAQM decided to ban fuel provision to vehicles at petrol pumps. The order was first to come into force from 30 April, later from 1 July, but now faces a recall.
According to the rules, vehicles impounded more than once will end up in the scrapping yards and not be released. If the owners do not apply for their release within three weeks of impounding, the vehicles will mandatorily go to the scrapping yard.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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Now the expiry vehicles can fill petrol/diesel.but won’t be allowed to ply on the roads,so they have to be airlifted by helicopters( heavy weight lifting Drones not developed so far).
And which idiot would park such cars in their Drawing rooms,after having reached the expiry date.
Why this rules not applicable to other means of communications like the Rly,Military vehicles and pvt ( Air India) and military aircrafts ( Might is declared as a Ying Coffin)