Delhi Police rally behind Rayleigh for red beacons

The Delhi Police on Monday banked on early 20th Century English physicist Lord Rayleighs theory of elastic scattering of light to convince the Supreme Court that police, armed forces and ambulances need to have red beacons to make their presence felt on the roads and battle odds like fog, dust and unearthly hours of the night.

In its application for a modification of a December 2013 Supreme Court judgment restricting the number of VIPs using red beacons in their cars, the Delhi Police said the blue lights don't match up to the red ones in intensity and presence.

The Capital's police explained the Rayleigh theory in Physics, chapter and verse, to make a bench led by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu see their point that red light has maximum penetration even in low visibility conditions such as fog, dust and night time. Whereas the blue one has least penetration, minimum wavelength and maximum scattering, making it unsuitable.

Historical use of red light is as that of a cautionary sign, the Delhi Police pressed their case. The police was successfull to get the bench to modify its 2013 verdict, pronounced in a public interest litigation filed by Abhay Singh.

Two year ago, Supreme Court had directed States to amend the Motor Vehicles Rules and limit red beacons to only heads of the executive, the legislature, the judiciary, constitutional post-holders and further impose an exemplary fine on violators.

The apex court had then traced the origin of the red beacon to the British era.

What we have done in the last four decades would shock the most established political systems. The best example is the use of symbols of authority, including the red lights on the vehicles of public representatives from the lowest to the highest and civil servants of various cadres. The red lights symbolise power and the stark differentiation between those who are allowed to use them and the ones who are not, the Supreme Court had observed then its judgment.

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