SC scraps exemption on Delhi’s environment cess for essential goods vehicles
The exemption, granted in October 2015, covered vehicles carrying items such as fruits, vegetables, milk, grains, poultry products and ice

The Supreme Court has withdrawn a nearly decade-old exemption that allowed commercial vehicles transporting essential commodities to enter Delhi without paying the Environment Compensation Cess (ECC).
A bench led by Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai, along with justices K. Vinod Chandran and N.V. Anjaria, passed the order on 26 September, which was made public recently.
The exemption, granted in October 2015, covered vehicles carrying items such as fruits, vegetables, milk, grains, poultry products and ice. The court said the concession was undermining the purpose of the levy and creating “genuine operational difficulties” for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD).
The MCD argued that the exemption made enforcement cumbersome as vehicles had to be stopped and physically inspected to confirm whether they were transporting essential commodities. This prolonged idling, the civic body said, led to higher emissions and contributed to air pollution.
Agreeing with the submission, the bench noted: “It is indeed difficult to find out a mechanism to verify from the outside as to what goods are being carried in such vehicles. As such, all vehicles are required to be stopped at check posts and subjected to physical verification, which results in prolonged stoppages and aggravates the problem of air pollution.”
The court added that the cess was not high enough to significantly affect consumer prices and therefore lifted the exemption.
The ruling was delivered in the long-running public interest litigation filed by environmentalist M.C. Mehta in 1985 on pollution in Delhi-NCR.
In a related development, the bench also permitted certified manufacturers to produce green crackers, but made clear they cannot be sold in Delhi-NCR without regulatory approval.
It further asked the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to re-examine the blanket ban on the manufacture of firecrackers in the region, after consulting all stakeholders, including the Delhi government, producers and sellers.
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