The Delhi High Court criticised the Centre over Delhi’s worsening air pollution and suggested reducing the 18% GST on air purifiers as minimum relief. The Court called the situation a public health emergency and sought urgent instructions from the government.
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NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Wednesday criticised the Central government for failing to effectively address the worsening air pollution crisis in Delhi and suggested that, at the very least, the government should reduce the 18% Goods and Services Tax (GST) on air purifiers.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela, while hearing the case, observed that if authorities are unable to provide clean air to citizens, reducing the tax burden on air purifiers would be a minimum relief measure.
The Court asked the Centre’s counsel to seek immediate instructions on whether GST on air purifiers could be temporarily reduced or exempted, even for a short period.
“This is the minimum that you can do. Every citizen requires fresh air. If you can’t do it, minimum you can do is reduce GST… Treat this situation as an emergency,”
the Bench remarked.
The Court directed the government to report back by 2:30 PM the same day, stating that the matter would be listed during court vacations solely for compliance.
Highlighting the severity of the issue, the Bench noted:
“How many times do you breathe in a day? 21,000 times. Just calculate the harm you are doing to yourself.”
The Court was hearing a petition filed by Advocate Kapil Madan, seeking directions to:
- Categorise air purifiers as ‘medical devices’, and
- Reduce GST on air purifiers from 18% to 5%
The petition argues that air purifiers can no longer be considered luxury items given Delhi’s “extreme emergency crisis” due to hazardous air quality levels.
According to the plea, imposing the highest GST slab on air purifiers makes them unaffordable for large sections of the population, thereby violating constitutional principles.
“The imposition of GST at the highest slab upon air-purifiers, a device that has become indispensable for securing minimally safe indoor air, inflicts an arbitrary, unreasonable, and constitutionally impermissible burden,”
the petition stated.
The petition further contends that air purifiers meet the definition of medical devices under a 2020 Central government notification.
It states:
“Air-purifiers perform a critical medical-device function by enabling safe respiration and mitigating life-threatening exposures.”
Given their preventive and physiological support role, the plea argues that taxing air purifiers at 18% GST is arbitrary, unreasonable, and disproportionate.
The petition claims that the continued imposition of 18% GST fails the constitutional test of:
- Intelligible differentia, and
- Rational nexus with public health objectives
“Such differential treatment warrants judicial intervention,”
the plea adds.
The petition was filed through Advocates Gurmukh Singh Arora and Rahul Matharu.
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