The Supreme Court on Thursday expressed its anguish over the increasing number of car accidents in the city and blamed the Delhi Police for this in not enforcing the order prohibiting use of black films of any Visible Light Transmittance (VLT) percentage or any other material upon the safety glasses, windscreens (front and rear) and side glasses of all vehicles. A Bench of Justices A. K. Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar reserved order on applications seeking clarification on certain aspects of the order passed on April 27 when the ban was imposed by the Court. Justice Kumar told Additional Solicitor-General Gourab Banerjee that the number of accidents was because of the police discriminating in enforcing the order by not touching the cars owned by the affluent sections of the people in the city. Justice Kumar said, “People who are suffering are the middle class. All the cars involved in the accidents belonged to the rich and have their glasses covered by black films and they go scot-free. You better tell your police officers to enforce our order across the board.” While reserving its order on all the applications by the manufacturers of the black films, the Bench made it clear that according to the relevant Rule what was permitted was a glass and nothing could be pasted on it. The Bench noted that in terms of Rule 100 (2) of the Motor Vehicles Act 70 per cent and 50 per cent VLT standard are relatable to the manufacture of the safety glasses for the windshields (front and rear) and the side windows respectively. On behalf of the black film manufacturers it was submitted that the orders were passed without affording them an opportunity. It was contended that as consequence of this order their business was folding up. The Bench pointed out that it had not disturbed the Rule 100 (2) but had only interpreted it. It said that if the manufacturers had any problem with the said Rule then they could approach the law makers. “If you want to tell us that the rule is not in public interest or otherwise then go to the legislature,” Justice Patnaik said. The court said that what law permitted was just the glass as manufactured and nothing could be pasted on it. “There may be better or cheap alternatives to glass but we can do only that Rule says,” it said. On April 27, the Court in its ban order had said, “One of the contributory factors to such increase is use of black films on windows/windshields of four-wheeled vehicles. The use of black films upon the vehicles gives immunity to the violators in committing a crime and is used as a tool of criminality, considerably increasing criminal activities. At times, heinous crimes like dacoity, rape, murder and even terrorist acts are committed in or with the aid of vehicles having black films pasted on the side windows and on the screens of the vehicles.”