NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court on Monday suggested to the Delhi Government to consider banning use of dark tinted film on windscreens and windowpanes of cars to check crime, particularly sexual assaults on women in moving vehicles across the Capital.

A Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice H.R. Malhotra made this suggestion while hearing a public interest litigation drawing the Court's attention to the increase in the number of road accidents in the city.

While querying the Delhi traffic police about action taken against vehicle owners for using tinted film having opacity beyond the permissible limit, the Bench said sale of the film should be banned to check crime.

There had been several incidents in the past where criminals were found to have used vehicles with deep tinted windowpanes and windscreens to kidnap women and sexually assault them.

The traffic police had last year informed the Court that they had sought certain amendments to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989, to make use of tinted film with impermissible opacity punishable with imprisonment up to one year.

In an affidavit, the traffic police also suggested that the police be empowered to get films pasted on the windscreens and windowpanes of the vehicles in violation of the provisions removed.

A new provision should also be written in the law book to allow the police to cancel Registration Certificates if the owners or drivers of vehicles were found using black, dark, reflective glass film, it was suggested.

The permissible visual transmission for windscreens is 70 per cent while for the windowpanes it is 50 per cent conforming to Indian standards.

The police had made these suggestions in response to another public interest litigation filed by Saraswati Pillai, president of the South Delhi Housewives' Association, through her lawyer, Wills Mathews, seeking effective implementation of the provisions regulating the use of solar film by car owners in the Capital.

In her submission, she said that she had filed the petition on reading reports about incidents of sexual assaults in moving cars in the city.

She had moved the Court as an individual petitioner but the petition was subsequently converted into a PIL on the ground that it was a matter of public interest.

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