SC notice to govt on plea for green cess on cars

Observing that people in the National Capital Region (NCR) “should be allowed to breathe,” the Supreme Court on Monday sought the Centre’s response on a plea demanding additional levy of an “environment compensation charge” on all privately-owned diesel and petrol cars.

“People should be allowed to breathe. It is indeed a very important issue and we will look into it,” said a forest bench led by Justice Aftab Alam while issuing notice to the Central government on the application, which also asked for imposing an environment compensation charge to the tune of 25 per cent of the price of a new diesel car that could be collected by the dealer at the time of sale.

Appearing as amicus curiae in the PIL, senior advocate Harish Salve said the application wanted a direction for charging an annual levy of 4 per cent of the price of a diesel car and 2 per cent of the price of a petrol car on all existing private cars in the NCR. “This money should be charged by the insurance company at the time of renewal of their insurance and must precede as a condition of such renewal,” he said.

On the question of levying 25 per cent of the price of a new diesel car on the buyer, Salve said the idea was to discourage people from indiscriminately buying diesel cars which have damaging environment effect. In his application, Salve said pollution levels in the NCR have touched

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