Delhi air pollution: SC to consider extending order for colour-coded stickers for vehicles beyond NCR

Supreme Court considers mandatory hologram-based colour-coded stickers for vehicles to tackle air pollution beyond National Capital Region.

The Supreme Court has stressed on the need of hologram-based colour-coded stickers for vehicles to tackle air pollution, saying it was considering to make it mandatory in states and Union Territories beyond the National Capital Region.

In 2018, the top court accepted the proposal of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), which envisaged that hologram-based light blue stickers would be used in vehicles using petrol and CNG in the National Capital Region (NCR), whereas diesel-run vehicles would have orange stickers.

These stickers, which facilitates in identifying vehicles based on the fuel used, were also supposed to include the date of registration of the vehicle.

Following the apex court’s order, the Centre amended Rule 50 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, and the High Security Registration Plate (HSRP) order of 2001 to give legal recognition to the scheme of hologram-based stickers.

The matter came up for hearing on Friday (January 3, 2025) before a bench of Justices A. S. Oka and A. G. Masih.

The bench emphasised on enforcement to deal with vehicular pollution and said the direction for colour-coded stickers was needed to be implemented.

It said diesel vehicles could be identified at the time when the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) was in force to curb air pollution.