Panaji, Dec 12 (TNN): The transport director and the principal secretary removed the red beacons from their cars on Tuesday soon after the Supreme Court ordered that only Constitutional authorities can use red beacons on their official cars. The state government will now review the use of red beacons on cars of VIPs following the Supreme Court order.

Transport director Arun Desai told TOI that he will soon issue a circular directing persons not entitled to use the red beacons on their official cars, to refrain from doing so. Desai said that only about ten persons in Goa are likely to be affected by the order.

While constitutional authorities like cabinet ministers were using red beacons, the government had allowed other VIPs to use the red beacons upon request. One of these is the mayor of Panaji.

Those who will no longer be allowed to use red beacons include both collectors/district magistrates, deputy collectors/divisional magistrates and mamlatdars/executive magistrates.

Desai said requests to be allowed use of red beacons on their cars are pending from the chairman of the zilla panchayat and the chairman of the Goa public service commission (GPSC). There are doubts whether the GPSC chairman is eligible or not because the chairman of the Union public service commission is eligible.

The government will also have to take a call on whether it can allow VIPs holding cabinet status to use red beacons on their cars. These include chairpersons of the Goa law commission and NRI commission.

The state government had earlier authorized certain officers in uniform like police, road transport officials and armed forces to use red beacons on their cars. The Supreme Court has now made it clear that even these VIPs cannot use red beacons but may use beacons of other colours.