Limited public resources can't be deployed to boost ego: HC

Tribune News Service

Saurabh Malik

Chandigarh, April 14

In a significant judgment liable to change the way pleas for security cover are adjudicated, the Punjab and Haryana High Court has ruled that limited public resources cannot be deployed for display of eminence and as an attempt to bolster the recipient’s ego.

The Bench of Justice Augustine George Masih and Justice Vinod S Bhardwaj also made it clear that there could be no justification to extend personal security cover at the state’s expense “only as an act of patronage or as an act aimed to create a coterie of obliged and loyal persons” in case the competent authority in the state government was convinced that the threat had abated.

Security not at state’s expense

There can be no justification to extend personal security cover at the state’s expense. —High Court Bench

The Bench was hearing an appeal filed by a “decorated” police officer against the state of Punjab and other respondents. He had initially moved the court for quashing of an order dated April 4, 2017, whereby security provided to him was withdrawn.

Dismissing the plea, the Single Judge had observed the “State Level Security Review Committee”, constituted to evaluate security provided to individuals, did not find threat perception to the appellant and decided to withdraw the security cover. It was also duly noticed that security provided to various officers had been withdrawn after review.

State counsel Gaurav Garg Dhuriwala, during the hearing of the appeal, told the Division Bench there had been no incident of any nature whatsoever in the recent past that would support or supplement the appellant’s apprehension of threat to life and liberty.

After hearing rival contentions, the Bench asserted seeking a personal security officer was not a vested right. Mere apprehension in an individual’s mind, not supported by any cogent, convincing and reliable material, could not form the basis for the court to conclude that threat perception assessment by the state was invalid or based upon incorrect and subjective mis-appreciation of the material available with it.

The Bench added the facts emanating from the record did not establish real threat. It appeared that the demand for security was “more to display it as an authority of symbol and to flaunt his status as a VIP. This practice of creating a privileged class on the state’s expense, by using the taxpayers’ money has to be deprecated”.

The Bench added the court could not substitute its decision for that of the competent authority pertaining to the threat apprehension entertained by the appellant. Recognising the “exemplary services” rendered by the appellant at the time of unrest, the Bench added the same alone could not be the basis to claim a personal security cover as a matter of right, for perpetuity despite no apprehension assessed by State on the basis of its intelligence input.

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