CRPF inspects Madras High Court premises

Chennai: A team of officials from Central Reserve Police Force inspected the Madras High Court campus on Sunday. This appears to be the first step in deploying a central security force at the Madras High Court premises, declared as high security zone by the state government in September.

Last month, high court bench comprising Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice T.S. Sivgnanam had ordered the state government to provide security cover by a ‘neutral’ force. The bench asked for a possible CRPF cover after taking a serious view of a group of lawyers and civilians staging a sit-in protest inside the court hall demanding conduct of proceedings in Tamil.

On Sunday, the CRPF team went around the campus for over an hour, clicking pictures of entry and exit points, besides inspecting the buildings, indicating that the central force will be planning and executing a foolproof security system for HC.

The state government had indicated that there was no need for a Central force to handle the security issues at the Madras high court. But the visit of a seven-member team headed by a deputy commandant of CRPF on Sunday indicates that the central force would take over the job from city police, who were finding it difficult to handle lawyers in the court premises.

The HC  felt that the police were often reluctant to take any action, possibly due to past confrontation with lawyers. Therefore, it suggested that a central force takes over.

In a security committee meeting few months back the city police representative had also highlighted the problem in handling ‘unruly’ lawyers inside the campus.

The judges, while issuing orders, had also pointed out that in 2007 the Union home ministry had issued guidelines declaring High Court in all states as high security zone.  Only after the court highlighted the home ministry’s order did the state government declare Madras and Madurai premises of the High Court as high security zones.