New Delhi: The Supreme Court yesterday reserved its order on a plea seeking stripping “high dignitaries”, other than constitutional authorities, of beacon lights and sirens that they have on their vehicles as a status symbol and use to their advantage while travelling.
A bench of Justice G.S. Singhvi and Justice V Gopala Gowda, while reserving the order, said the “question is you are distinguishing between an ordinary citizen and these officials (high dignitaries) on the use of the road”.
Making it clear that it will bring down the curtain on the hearing of a matter that is going on for nearly two years, the court said that notifications issued by different state governments allowing the use of beacon lights and sirens would be pruned if they included people not eligible for such facilities.
The court in the course of its hearing made it clear that the use of beacon lights including sirens was limited to constitutional authorities that included the president, vice-president, prime minister, chief justice of India, the Lok Sabha speaker, governors in states, chief ministers, state assembly speakers, chief justices of high courts, cabinet and other ministers, ambulances and police.
The court directed the listing of the matter on September 3 when it would take up the matter of the government including state governments providing VIP security cover to the people even though they did not deserve it.
At one stage, when counsel representing the states referred to high dignitaries, the court wanted them to explain what they meant by it. The court also rejected the contention that use of beacon lights and sirens was a “sensitive” issue, saying that it was a small issue
IANS
