Red Fort a national symbol: SC

“This is a place with glorious history, a place of great honour for every Indian, and a place from where our first prime minister delivered his speech on August 15, 1947, the day when India broke the shackles of foreign rule and became a free country.

“It has since then been a tradition that every prime minister of this country delivers an address to the nation on August 15 to commemorate that great event,” a bench of Justices V S Sirpurkar and T S Thakur said.

In its 153-page verdict, the court dealt with the historical importance of Red Fort, where every prime minister delivered his or her Independence Day speech since August 15, 1947.
Describing the attack on Red Fort by a group of men as an “insult to question the sovereignty of the great nation”, the bench recalled how first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru unfurled the tricolour from the ramparts of the Red Fort on August 15, 1947 symbolising the end of the British rule in the country and the birth of an independent India.