By Biswaraj Pattnaik, September 9, 2015 :  One fine morning a swanky car with a flashing red beacon zoomed past a group of morning walkers and screeched to a halt in front of a public facility. The driver jumped out and sprinted to disappear in a Sulabh Sauchalaya.

The morning walkers wondered as to why a high dignitary drove the car himself and crash into a cheap public toilet. Moments later they came to know the vehicle belonged to a visiting Income Tax official who is not entitled to a beacon light, let alone a ‘flashing red’. The thieving official imagined he was a bigwig and his outstation driver had the right to use the red flashing beacon when the nature’s call was overwhelmingly pressing. Even Panchayatiraj representatives are seen flaunting the flashing red beacon. The arrogant income tax official considered himself a VIP unaware of basic law, crime and punishment.

A VIP in any civilized democracy is looked down as a ‘Very Irritating Person’ for abusing position of authority granted by the public. In healthier democracies, only great achievers in the field of science, education, art including theatre and cinema and above all public service are considered true dignitaries who may be informally called VIPs at special occasions.  Nowhere in the world, a public servant can assume the proportions of a VIP before the masters who pay him a salary.

This widely misplaced expression VIP  was first used during World War II by an army officer who was taking a secret flight of dignitaries to the Middle East by keeping their identities a secret. So, he listed each of them as “VIP” on his transport document. This appellation became an almost overnight sensation and, though most frequently used to describe an officer, executive, or politician, VIP now is applied to anyone in a position of importance. The Russian aristocracy forced to flee during the 1917 revolution, had landed in liberal European locations like France where they flaunted and squandered wealth to be recognised as dignitaries of a much higher class. They spent money to be introduced as VIPs.

Younger people today are too clever to know that  the constitution guarantees every citizen of India the same set of fundamental rights, and binds  them to the same set of duties and governs them by the same set of laws. The culture of big and small by virtue of default positions is a relic of the feudal past.

The whole concept of VIP is highly contradictory to the spirit of democracy. The moment ordinary people accept a public servant to be more important than the masses, and dole out their money to accord him a disproportionately elitist status, they are doing wrong to their own nation state.

In India, VIPs block road traffic, steal the state’s hospitality – police escort and motorcade full of headless cronies, spouses, spoilt children and of course sycophants who invariably manage to cram in.

People’s displeasure kept rising and after several PILs never heard properly, one or two stirred the judges. One was a Calcutta bench which had come heavily on the state authorities and the latest one by one Abhay Singh of Uttar Pradesh. The Supreme Court has now conclusively banned the use of red beacon light with flasher on all vehicles except those used by truly high dignitaries holding constitutional posts. The apex court bench asked the government to make appropriate amendments in the Motor Vehicles Act to make the ‘fine’ amounts to be big enough to be a deterrent. The SC also banned air – pressure, multi-sound and musical horns in vehicles.

This grand bench headed by Justice G S Singhvi also directed the Centre to issue a fresh list of people eligible for using red beacon and to amend the rule within three months if beacon light use is without a rule.

The bench did further warn the state governments against fanciful expansion of the list of dignitaries eligible for red beacon beyond the notifications issued by the Centre in 2002 and 2005. This includes the President, Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, cabinet ministers, governors, chief ministers and the chiefs of the three defence services.

Even use of siren, granted by the government to some so called VIPs, was unlawful and the practice must stop. It had also directed that the police personnel giving security cover to VIPs, be deployed for better purposes like making the roads safe for women.

The Supreme Court has directed all state governments to furnish in two days the number and details of police personnel assigned to serve politicians exclusively with a warning to summon senior bureaucrats  from all states to court if the directive was ignored in any manner.

The centre has meanwhile told the court that Rs 341 crore rupees are spent annually on guarding VVIPs only in Delhi. Most of this money was spent on 376 individuals with Z-plus security manned by central security forces. Forty crore rupees were spent on the security in Rashtrapati Bhawan alone.

The Special Protection Group was deployed for these VIPs with varying security categories :

• Z+ category has a security cover of 36 personnel
• Z category has a security cover of 28 personnel
• Y category has a security cover of 11 personnel
• X category has a security cover of 2 persons.

Incidentally, only one cop is available to protect 568 Indian citizens. Yet, Prime Minister Modi who sold tea for a living not very long ago, has remorselessly made fresh provisions for bigger fund allocation to keep his political colleagues jovial and supportively joyous with special police protection irrespective of party lines, no matter if they have zero threat perception. With VVIP status, the unpatriotic self-styled bigwigs are keen that their vehicles are decorated with ‘red beacon’ mainly to scare the public and the police alike. The ‘red beacon’ fashion has become so infectious that even sarpanches flaunt one on their tattered fourth hand vehicles.

According to the Notification No. 52 (E)/ 11-01-2002 of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, under clause (iii) of proviso to rule 108 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989, the Central Government specifies that a vehicle carrying the following high dignitaries shall be permitted to use:

‘Red light with flasher’ only while on duty anywhere in the country:

President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Former President, Deputy Prime Minister, Chief Justice of India, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Union Cabinet Ministers, Chief Ministers, Ambassadors Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and High Commissioners of Commonwealth Countries accredited to India.

Deputy Chief Ministers of States

Chief Justices of High Courts Within &  outside their respective jurisdictions.

Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary accredited to India. Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Former Prime Ministers, Leaders of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, Judges of the Supreme Court.

‘Red light without flasher’ :

Judges of High Courts, Chief Election Commissioner, Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Deputy Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Deputy Speaker, Lok Sabha, Ministers of the State of the Union

Members of the Planning Commission

Attorney General of India, Cabinet Secretary, Chiefs of Staff of the three services holding the rank of full General or equivalent rank, Deputy Ministers of the Union,

Officiating Chiefs of Staff of the three services holding the rank of Lt. General or equivalent rank

Chairman, Central Administrative Tribunal, Chairman, Minorities Commission, Chairman, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission, Chairman, Union Public Services Commission.

Some dignitaries not included in the lists may be considered on the basis of the ‘Table of Precedence’ published in the President’s Secretariat Notification No. 33-Press/79 dated the 26th July, 1979.

But if the dignitaries are not in the vehicle, the red light be removed or covered by a black casing.

Beacon colours for non-Constitutional public servants :

Top police personnel in the rank of DGP, ADGP, IG, DIG, SP, Commissioner, Additional Commissioner, DC and AC, ASP, DSP could use blue light with flasher.

Government secretaries, department heads, district collectors, municipal chairpersons and commissioners, district judges who require unhindered access to the roads for performing their duties can also use ‘blue light’ with flasher.

The Supreme Court ruled against misuse of beacon light by politicians and bureaucrats who are flaunting it as a status symbol, saying it is reflective of the “Raj mentality”.

The apex court also banned private individuals from using siren in their vehicles and directed the authorities to take punitive action against those doing so.

As per the Apex Court orders uniformed personnel engaged in emergency duties such as ambulance and fire services, emergency maintenance and police vehicles used as escorts or pilots or for law and order duties will be entitled to use blue, amber or specific multicoloured lights but never the ‘red beacon’.

The Supreme Court has observed  that a large number of persons are using ‘red lights’ on their vehicles for committing crimes in different parts of the country and they do so with impunity because the police officials are mostly scared of checking vehicles with the red beacon.

According to rules, siren is allowed only on vehicles used as ambulances or for fire fighting or salvage purposes or vehicles used by police officers or operators of construction equipment vehicles or officers of the motor vehicles department only while discharging emergency public duty.

J & K chief minister Omar Abdullah tweeted immediately after the SC order. “It’s amazing how some people are married to this symbol of power. If the PM doesn’t need a red beacon why should anyone else? I look forward to instructing my people to remove red beacons from all my official vehicles…”

The court also banned pressure, multi-sound and musical horns in vehicles. “No motor vehicles except those specified in rule 119(3) of the 1989 rules or similar provisions contained in the rules framed by the state governments or the administration of Union territories shall be fitted with multi-toned horns giving an unduly harsh, shrill, loud or alarming noise,” the bench had said.

The Maharashtra government in August pruned the list of people who can use red beacons on their vehicles. Accordingly, only the governor, chief minister, deputy chief minister and ministers, chief justice of the Bombay high court, chairman and speaker of the legislature and leaders of the opposition are entitled to use red lights with flashers.

Divisional commissioners, district collectors, mayors and commissioners of B class municipal corporations, sub-divisional and executive magistrates (within their jurisdictions), enforcement vehicles of the transport and excise departments, vehicles used to maintain law and order and fire department vehicles can use amber lights without flashers. The Delhi police has just been permitted Red Beacon during the monumental winter fogs as that colour penetrates fog easily. But Incidentally, the US and other cold European countries with more dangerously thick winter fogs have never appealed to law makers pr courts for the ‘red beacon’ on record.

All the same some states have chosen their dignitaries fancifully so as to let them abuse the ‘red beacon’ by way of populist methods for keeping officials happy and servile to extend unlawful support at the wrong times.

The most honourable Supreme Court could have done much better by fixing a pocket-pinching financial penalty which is still not above 300 rupees as fixed in 1988. So offenders would commit the crime without fear and keep spitting out the paltry sum any number of times in a single day. Thos unfortunate arrangement suits fine to hardcore criminals on the run to rob banks or wealthy households. It’s like only tweaking the criminal’s ears when he is convicted for homicide and let him go. If alcohol abuse by drivers can attract a penalty of Rs 10,000, how can the know-all public officials escape with abuse of the blinking Red Eye?

The conscious masses do not recognise public servants as VIPs and do not permit any of them a Red beacon. Blue, yellow and amber are tolerable only when they prove they are on the master’s duty.