The Attorney General has rejected media reports claiming that the Union Government informed the Supreme Court that its E20 ethanol-blended petrol initiative was an “ongoing experiment.”
In an official statement, the Attorney General’s Office said such reports are factually incorrect and clarified that no submission describing the E20 programme as an experiment was made during the court proceedings.
The clarification follows news reports suggesting that the Centre had acknowledged uncertainty over the long-term effects of the E20 policy before the apex court. The Attorney General’s Office said these reports misrepresented the government’s arguments.
According to the statement, the hearing was confined to issues relating to the allocation of ethanol to dedicated ethanol plants. The Centre informed the court that similar disputes are pending before several High Courts and proposed filing transfer petitions to have all related matters heard together by the Supreme Court.
The government argued that consolidating the cases would help ensure uniformity in judicial decisions and avoid disruptions in ethanol supplies to Oil Marketing Companies, which are implementing the country’s ethanol blending programme.
The Supreme Court directed the Centre to file the transfer petitions and ordered that the existing arrangement regarding ethanol allocation for the 2025–26 ethanol supply year should continue until further orders.
Reiterating its position, the Attorney General’s Office stated that the government never referred to the E20 programme as an experiment and urged accurate reporting of court proceedings to avoid misinformation on issues of public import.
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