The HC held that while details of the security review meeting held on February 2, 2022 was not leaked, the details of the March 29, 2022 meeting was put on public domain. (file)The Punjab and Haryana High Court (HC) on Tuesday disposed of a bunch of petitions challenging the withdrawal and decategorisation of security cover of VIPs. The Bench of Justice Raj Mohan Singh, after hearing a bunch of 45 petitions filed by former Punjab deputy chief minister Om Parkash Soni and others, ordered that the security covers of protectees/individuals (petitioners) be analysed afresh in terms of their threat perceptions.
The HC added that “the existing security cover provided to the petitioner(s)/individuals/ protectees even under the orders of the court shall remain in force till fresh assessment is made by the competent authority. In case of petitioner(s), who have not been provided any protection, the respondent (state) shall from an opinion on the basis of threat perceptions of the individuals and shall act in accordance with law. Till such time, one security personnel shall be provided to them as well.” The petitioners had moved the HC challenging the withdrawal, pruning, downgrading and de-categorisation of the security of the protectees vide common orders passed by Punjab.
The HC on perusing the records, found that a meeting of State Security Review Committee was held on February 2, 2022 and cases of 557 protectees were considered.
While status quo was maintained in respect of 215 protectees, security covers of 107 protectees were withdrawn partially and completely removed for 235 protectees. In case of MLA etc. the aforesaid security review was not leaked. The State Security Review Committee again met on March 29, 2022 and considered cases of 283 protectees. This time, status quo of 104 protectees were maintained, security covers of five protectees were partially withdrawn and for 174 protectees it was completely withdrawn.
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The HC held that while details of the security review meeting held on February 2, 2022 was not leaked, the details of the March 29, 2022 meeting was put on public domain.
Justice Raj Mohan Singh added that security reviews need to be done on a periodic basis with the passage of time and on the basis of official inputs provided by different agencies, including state and central.
“As per State Security Policy, police officers are recruited, trained and maintained at a huge cost borne by the taxpayers and are deployed for the protection. Provision for granting security covers to individuals from taxpayers’ money has to be viewed as an exception and not as a rule…The threat perception has to be real, based on intelligence reports from different quarters. The demand for security cannot be on the basis of displaying an authority of symbol or to flaunt the status as a very important person. No privileged class can be created on the state’s expense by using money of taxpayers. Personal security cover cannot be claimed as a matter of right and in perpetuity,” Justice Raj Mohan Singh observed.
Holding that action of withdrawing the security cover of the protectees in lots can be viewed from the view points of both the parties, the HC added that one thing is common that after withdrawal of security cover by the State Security Review Committee on different occasions, the same has come under public domain and that fact has aggravated the perceived threat of the protectees.
The Bench added that it cannot loose sight of the fact that decategorisation of security may sometime prompt anti-social elements to take drastic step in attack the protectee. The HC thus held that the competent authority should make fresh assessment in respect of security threats of protectees after considering the available inputs from different agencies.
The competent authority should also consider the inputs provided by the individuals/protectees.