Supreme Court Crackers Rules: What the 2018 Order Actually Says
Supreme court crackers rules explained: the 2018 order that allowed green crackers, set the noise ceiling and Diwali window, and how NGT rules differ.
The Supreme Court crackers rules that govern India today trace back to a single judgement: the order of 23 October 2018, in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 728 of 2015, sometimes cited as Arjun Gopal v Union of India. That order allowed the manufacture and sale of certified green crackers, fixed a national noise ceiling, and confined bursting on Diwali to a short evening window. A separate body, the National Green Tribunal, later added its own restriction on top, and the two get conflated constantly. This guide separates what the Supreme Court actually ordered from what the NGT ordered afterward.
The short answer:
- The Supreme Court's order of 23 October 2018 (WP(C) 728/2015) permitted the manufacture and sale of certified green crackers, which had effectively been restricted before that.
- The same order set a national noise ceiling of 125 dB(AI) or 145 dB(C) pk, measured 4 metres from the point of bursting.
- It also confined bursting on Diwali to a roughly two-hour window, commonly implemented by states as 8 pm to 10 pm.
- The National Green Tribunal, by separate orders dated 9 November and 1 December 2020 (O.A. No. 249/2020), restricts usage to green crackers only in cities and towns where air quality is moderate or worse, a different rule from a different authority.
- PESO tests and certifies crackers against the Supreme Court's noise and composition standard before manufacture is permitted.
On this page
On this page
For the noise-limit maths and the green-cracker chemistry behind these rules, see firecracker decibel limits and how green crackers work, part of the wider crackers guides library.
What the Supreme Court actually ruled, and when
By its order of 23 October 2018, in Writ Petition (Civil) No. 728 of 2015, the Supreme Court permitted the manufacture and sale of certified green crackers. That's the core holding worth remembering: the Court didn't ban crackers outright, and it didn't invent a new product category from nothing. It allowed a certified, lower-emission category to be manufactured and sold, subject to conditions it laid down in the same order.
Those conditions covered two more things beyond the green-cracker permission: a noise ceiling that applies to every legally sold cracker, and a restriction on when crackers may be burst on Diwali. Read together, the order is less a ban and more a framework: certain products, tested to a standard, within certain hours, under a fixed noise limit.
The noise ceiling the order set
The same 2018 order fixed the national noise ceiling still in force: no firecracker may exceed 125 dB(AI) or 145 dB(C) pk, measured 4 metres from the point of bursting, and a joined or series cracker faces a further reduction based on how many units are strung together. That ceiling applies to green and conventional crackers alike, it doesn't vary by state, and PESO is the agency that tests formulations against it before manufacture is allowed. The full breakdown, including the series-reduction formula and a worked example, sits in our firecracker decibel limits guide; the ceiling is only one strand of the wider order set out on this page.
The Diwali bursting window
The order also confined bursting to a limited evening window on Diwali, roughly two hours, which states have generally implemented as 8 pm to 10 pm. That "on Diwali" qualifier matters: this is a festival-specific restriction, not a year-round nightly rule. PESO's separate general safety guidance, that sound crackers shouldn't be burst between 10 pm and 6 am on any night, is a different, broader rule that sits alongside the Diwali-specific window rather than replacing it.
States can and do adjust the exact hours through their own notifications, sometimes narrowing them further in cities with poor air quality. Our cracker ban and timing rules by state guide and Diwali muhurat and cracker bursting timings guide track how that plays out state by state and how it differs from the unrelated religious muhurat timing.
Where the NGT's rule layers on top, and why it's not the same order
The National Green Tribunal is a separate body from the Supreme Court, and its rule on crackers came two years after the 2018 judgement, by orders dated 9 November and 1 December 2020 in O.A. No. 249/2020. The NGT directed that only green crackers may be used in cities and towns where air quality is recorded as moderate or worse. That's a usage restriction tied to local air quality, layered on top of the Supreme Court's national framework, not a replacement for it.
Put plainly: the Supreme Court's order applies everywhere and governs what can be manufactured, how loud it can be, and roughly when it can be burst on Diwali. The NGT's order applies only where local air quality is poor enough to trigger it, and it governs which formulation you're allowed to use there, conventional or green-only.
Why the Supreme Court and the NGT get mixed up
The confusion is understandable, since both orders concern the same subject and both get summarised as "the crackers ban." But they're issued by different institutions, on different dates, doing different jobs. The Supreme Court's 2018 order is the one that permitted green crackers to exist as a legal, certified product in the first place, and it set the noise ceiling and the Diwali timing window that apply nationally. The NGT's 2020 orders didn't touch any of that; they added a separate, location-dependent rule restricting which formulation you may burst, based on whether your city or town's air quality is moderate or worse at the time.
Crediting the Supreme Court with the green-only usage restriction, or crediting the NGT with permitting green crackers in the first place, gets the two the wrong way round. If you're checking what applies to you, the noise ceiling and timing window come from the Supreme Court; whether you're restricted to green-only stock in your city comes from the NGT.
Who certifies and who enforces
PESO, the Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation, tests and certifies firecrackers, including green ones, against the Supreme Court's noise and composition standard before a manufacturer is permitted to produce them at all. Certification happens before a cracker reaches a shelf; day-to-day enforcement of the timing window and the NGT's local usage restriction is a matter for state administrations and local authorities, applied through their own notifications each festival season. Our PESO licence explained guide covers PESO's licensing and certification role in full.
What this means for you
Buy certified stock, check the CSIR-NEERI logo and QR code before you commit, respect the Diwali evening window your state has notified, and check whether your city falls under the NGT's green-only restriction before assuming conventional crackers are an option. Our eco-friendly Diwali guide and green crackers range are built around exactly this compliance picture, and the cracker ban and timing rules by state guide is the place to check your own state's current notification before you buy.