Due to the escalating harmful influence on the environment by the oxides of nitrogen, the emission regulations are stringently upgraded for the control of nitrogen oxide emission recently. The stringent requirements cannot be satisfied only by reformulated fuel or combustion phenomena alone, will require intense after-treatment technology. Among the exploitations of various nitrogen oxides abatement technologies, selective catalytic reduction system has the significant potential and wide acceptance of controlling the oxides of nitrogen emission upto 90% in light and heavy-duty vehicles. Due to the existing market potential for an improvised selective catalytic reduction technology, lots of efforts have been made to optimize the selective catalytic reduction system such as superior catalyst technology, enhanced reductant dosing strategy, and byproduct limitation. This paper purposely scripted to give the holistic overview of the selective catalytic reduction system operation together with their component's progress, and thus development was reviewed. Furthermore, a critical interpretative investigation about the common relation among the various catalysts is utilized in the ammonia selective catalytic reduction system using principal component analysis. Also, the construction of a selective catalytic reduction controller design for the development of an effective control strategy and the possible failures of SCR system components, along with its corresponding effects, are well discussed. Even though selective catalytic reduction system is superior after-treatment nitrogen oxides reduction technology, still it has a lot of possibilities to improvise in terms of performance for the transient operation of the engine. © 2020 Elsevier Ltd