After judge receives poor response to “Dial 100”, Delhi HC converts letter to PIL

In an interesting episode, the Delhi High Court yesterday took up suo moto cognizance of a letter written by one of its own judges on the ‘poor’ response time on the ‘Dial 100’ helpline service..As published first by Times of India, Justice Vipin Sanghi had written to the Delhi Commissioner of Police and narrated his own experience of being denied assistance during a distress call made by him..The letter, which Justice Sanghi shared with Chief Justice G Rohini, said that while he was stuck in massive traffic, he called the 100 helpline for informing the police authorities about the jam situation. However, much to his dismay, there was no response and his call was kept on on hold for five minutes..Justice Sanghi also points out how the Commissioner himself was unreachable after multiple calls to the latter also did not yield any result. The judge has expressed his concerns over the episode seeing how the helpline is an ’emergency response mechanism’..Yesterday, the Court took up the matter for hearing as a suo-moto PIL as per Justice Sanghi’s request in his letter to the Chief Justice..While admitting that this was a ‘serious issue’, Chief Justice G Rohini issued notice to the Central Government as well as the Delhi Police and sought their response..Their replies will have to be filed before the next date of hearing on July 18.