| SC allows red beacon on police, emergency vehicles | | | Sumit Sharma
Early Times Report
Jammu, Feb 19: Modifying its earlier order, the Supreme Court has again allowed the police, armed forces, emergency vehicles and ambulances to use the red beacon.
The SC modified its earlier order after a plea in this connection was filed by National Capital Territory of Delhi, where in, it had requested to modify the earlier order dated Dec 10, 2013 and permit persons engaged in emergency duty such as ambulance, fire services, emergency maintenance, police and armed forces to use red beacon on the vehicles also besides other colour depending on their operational requirements.
The plea had ground that the blue beacon, which was permitted earlier, was not visible in the Capital's fog and dust.
In its judgment the court observed: "Keeping in view the request made in the application in our opinion, if the prayer made in the application is granted, it would not cause any prejudice to the petitioner or any other persons. In that view of the matter, we modify our order dated 10.12.2013 and permit persons engaged in the emergency duty such as ambulance, fire services, emergency maintenance, police and armed forces to use red lights on the vehicles also besides other colour depending on their operational requirements".
The court has posted the PIL for final hearing in April, 2015 and asked states to file their responses before the final hearing of the matters.
Meanwhile, Transport Commissioner Dilshad Khan when contacted over the issue said that the meeting in this connection would be taken soon.
Pertinently, in December 2013, the Apex court had held that red beacons be allowed only by persons holding constitutional posts and dignitaries to prevent its misuse.
It had also asked the Centre to issue a fresh list of eligible people for using red beacon on their vehicles and asked it to amend the rules. The court had passed the order on a PIL filed by Uttar Pradesh resident Abhay Singh.
The petitioner had prayed that the red light has become a status symbol and that police personnel, who are put on duty as a security cover for VIPs, should be deployed for better purposes like making the roads safe for women.
The judges had earlier said that people use red lights on their vehicles for committing crimes because police officials are scared of checking vehicles with red lights. |
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