The central legal point established is the importance of implementing measures to control vehicle emissions and improve compliance with emission norms.

ORDER :

EPCA REPORT NO. 73, DATED 24.04.2017

We have gone through the above report as well as response given by the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways dated 01.08.2017.

2. In the affidavit, the Ministry has brought out a chart of the recommendations and we propose to follow that chart. This reads as follows :

Sr.No.	Recommendations of EPCA	Response of the Ministry	Direction
1.	Limit the number of PUC centres, upgrade them and bring them under strong supervision and quality control.	(i) There are two approaches on the subject: (i) that the number of PUC Centres should be curtailed and those which are allowed to remain in operation are high quality centres; (ii) that the number of PUC Centres should be enlarged across all possible points of regular contact points of a vehicle owner. There is a case for working on both the approaches. (ii) Accordingly, it is proposed to request the Society for Indian Automotive Manufacturers (SIAM) to explore the feasibility of provision for high-end PUC centers at all the authorized service centres of OEMs. These Service Centres can then be required to furnish a PUC Certificate at the time of servicing a vehicle. Ensuring that the serviced vehicle is compliant with the norms should form a part of the vehicle service norms. (iii) An advisory is also proposed be issued to the State Transport Departments for mandating PUC centres at each fuel station. (iv) List of all Type Approved PUC Machines by various test agencies would be put on MoRTH website.	(i) **** (ii) The learned Solicitor General will ascertain the number of petrol stations in the NCR region and how many of them are equipped with PUC centres. The learned Solicitor General will also ascertain how many authorized service centres of OEMs are in the NCR region. (iii) The learned Solicitor General says that an advisory will be issued to all the State Transport Departments all over the country for mandating PUC centres at every fuel station. (iv) The learned Solicitor General says that all empanelled and authorized PUC Centres having Type Approved Machines will be uploaded on the website of the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways with their names, addresses and authorized personnel. In the first stage, the needful will be done within a month in so far as the NCR region is concerned and thereafter for the rest of the country.
2.1	Ensure 100 percent compliance by linking annual vehicle insurance with PUC certificates.	While linkage of renewal of Insurance with PUC certificates may be desirable, it may be noted that the vehicle insurance renewal is an annual feature whereas the periodicity for PUC norms for any vehicle should be at shorter intervals. It has been observed with serious concern that the coverage of third party insurance for motor vehicles is very low at this stage. Linkage of PUC certificate with Insurance may be counter-productive to that extent. MoRTH is of the view that with the linkage of PUC Centres with VAHAN database and other enforcement measures, the PUC compliance by motor vehicle owners is likely to improve considerably.	There is now no dispute or disagreement about this. However, it is made clear that the Insurance Companies will not insure a vehicle unless it has a valid PUC certificate on the date of renewal of the insurance policy. This should be implemented at the earliest.
2.2	Introduce automatic online network for transmission of PUC data to the central server to minimize manual interference and allow proper analysis of data for remote auditing of PUC centres.	It has been planned to link all the PUC Centres with the V