SC sends notice to Centre on plea for courts' security

The Supreme Court on Friday sought a response from the Centre and all the states on a plea for establishing a dedicated and specialised force for giving “foolproof security” to all courts, judges, lawyers, litigants and witnesses in the country.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari also issued notice to Attorney General K K Venugopal, the Bar Council of India and the Supreme Court Bar Association on a PIL filed by advocate Durga Dutt on behalf of his colleague Karunakar Mahalik.

The court put the matter for consideration on January 27.

Maintaining that the local police were not fully-equipped for the purpose, the petitioner cited a large number of mishappenings and crimes, including murder of Bar Council of UP chairperson, besides violence, firings in court premises and even in courtrooms, which endangered the lives of lawyers, litigants, court officials and judges.

“There is a crying need to replace the police with the dedicated and special system to provide full-scale security to all the persons related to the courts and tribunals including the litigants and the witnesses, so that the problems in regard to safety and security are addressed in a better way in consultation with the specialized agencies,” their plea stated.

The PIL contended that many anti-social elements entered court premises with arms, creating an extremely “insecure atmosphere”.

Due to the current inadequate condition of safety in court premises, it has become expedient to improve safety measures in court premises, it stated.

Giving an example of specialized Railway Protection Force, the petitioner pointed out that there was a special security police 'Marshal of the United States Supreme Court' in USA.

The South Australian Legislation, the Sheriff’s Act 1978 provided for the appointment of the special staff for providing security and maintaining order at courts and other places.

The petitioner said that CISF, a para military force, instead of local police, was providing security to the Madras High Court and the apex court on November 4, 2015, refused to interfere with the order.