By Express News Service
NEW DELHI:: The Supreme Court on Friday directed registrar-general of Punjab and Haryana High Court to secure and preserve all records related to the visit of Prime Minister to Punjab forthwith. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana said, “We direct Punjab and police authorities, SPG and other agencies to cooperate and provide necessary assistance to seal the entire record.”
The court also made it clear that an officer from the NIA should assist the High Court Registrar General in collecting the evidence including wireless messages relating to PM’s visit. The bench also asked the state and central government committees to refrain from inquiries till Monday, when it would hear the matter again.
During the hearing, senior advocate Maninder Singh told the apex court on the importance of protection to PM of the country and how a previous ruling by this court wasn’t followed during Wednesday’s incident adding that this is a issue of national security.
Echoing the same sentiments, Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, termed this incident as “international embarassment”.
“Whenever the Prime Minister’s cavalcade on the road, the DGP inspects the road to see if the Prime Minister can travel. In this case, DG had a green signal. The pilot car which runs ahead of the VVIP movement wasn’t informed about such protest by the state DGP,” Mehta told the bench adding that, such breach can potentially be a plot of cross-border terrorism.
Punjab Attorney-General DS Patwalia told the court that the state is not taking this case lightly and has already constituted a committee on the same day for which a retired HC judge was appointed and an FIR has also been registered.
The plea has sought a direction to the Bathinda District Judge to take possession of all evidence relating to police and security bandobast for the Prime Minister’s visit that had to be cancelled. The plea besides seeking a probe also sought the suspension of Punjab Chief Secretary Anirudh Tewari and DGP Sidharth Chattopadhyaya.
PM Modi’s convoy was stuck on flyover for twenty minutes after protestors allegedly blocked it. The security breach had happened on Wednesday when Modi was on his way to address a BJP rally and his cavalcade had to take a U-turn due to the protesters blocking his way.
As per settled procedure, the programme and the security arrangements for the Prime Minister are already shared with the concerned state government prior to the visit and even joint discussions are conducted prior to the visit in order to ensure the high level of security required to be maintained, the plea claimed.
