Green Court NGT Questions Oil Companies About 10-Year-Old Diesel Trucks

The National Green Tribunal has directed three public sector oil companies to submit complete information regarding 10-year-old diesel trucks they use to transport fuel and asked them to produce scrapping certificate to prove that they have dismantled their old vehicles.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar also directed the senior-most officers from each company to be present before it on August 8.

"The counsel appearing for the petroleum companies, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum, shall ensure that senior-most officers from each company to be present before the next date of hearing.

"They will provide complete detail with regard to vehicles, scrapping certificate should be placed before the tribunal. This would apply not only to the company, but to the contractors working with these companies," the bench said.

The green panel also directed the counsel appearing for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to take instructions as to when CNG would be made available in cities near the national capital.

The direction came during the hearing a batch of petitions filed by various contractors seeking registration of new BS-IV compliant diesel vehicles purchased for transport of petrol from company depots to identified petrol pumps in the National Capital Region.

The contractors had moved NGT after it had last year passed an order banning the registration of new diesel vehicles as well as their re-registration after 10 years.