Attorney General's Office Says Its Submission Never Called the E20 Programme an 'Experiment'

The Office of the Attorney General for India has issued a clarification stating that media reports published on June 30 claiming the Government described the 20% Ethanol Blended Petrol (E20) programme as an “experiment” before the Supreme Court are incorrect.

According to the statement, reports suggesting that the Attorney General told the Court the E20 programme was “still an ongoing experiment” or that “the impact of the policy would become clearer by next year” are “completely false” and do not reflect the submissions made on behalf of the Union of India.

The Attorney General’s Office said that during the hearing, the submissions before the Supreme Court were confined to the litigation surrounding ethanol allocation to Dedicated Ethanol Plants. It informed the Court that similar writ petitions involving identical issues are pending before different High Courts and that Transfer Petitions are being filed to bring the matters before the Supreme Court for a common adjudication.

According to the clarification, the purpose of the proposed transfer is to avoid parallel proceedings and the possibility of conflicting judicial decisions, while enabling an expeditious resolution of the litigation so that ethanol supplies to Oil Marketing Companies for maintaining 20% ethanol blending with petrol under the national Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme are not affected.

The statement further said that, after considering these submissions, the Supreme Court viewed that the proposed Transfer Petitions should be filed and that status quo should continue in respect of ethanol allocation for the current Ethanol Supply Year 2025-26, insofar as the present matter is concerned.

The Attorney General’s Office emphasised that “at no stage was any submission made that the Government’s Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme or the E20 blending programme is an ‘experiment’.”

“It is clarified in explicit terms that any suggestion that the Government described the E20 programme before the Hon’ble Supreme Court as an ‘experiment’ is incorrect and does not represent the submissions made on behalf of the Union of India,” the statement said.