Shootout at Rohini Court: Plea Filed in Delhi High Court Seeks Directions to Ensure Safety & Security of District Courts
(Judicial Quest News Network)
One day after gory and shocking shootout inside the Rohini Court, a petition is filed in Delhi High Court on Saturday seeking directions to authorities concern to take requisite measures to ensure the safety and security of District Courts of Delhi.
The petition is filed through a Delhi based Lawyer Deepa Joseph, through Advocate Robin Raju and Bleesan Mathews, raises the concern over the shocking incident of firing while highlighting that Advocates who are participating in District Courts on Daily basis are unsafe, an example of which is young legal professional who also got severely injured in the said incident.
The plea argues that the Friday’s incident was not the first in Delhi in the recent past there have been incidents of shooting in the Dwarka Court, a firing near the Saket Court in May 2019 and earlier in 2017, an undertrial was killed after being shot inside the Rohini Court Complex. A shocking incident similar in line to the incident in Rohini Court was the killing of a Delhi Police head constable when four armed assailants open fired inside a courtroom at Karkardooma Court Complex in the year 2015.
The shootout that saw the killing of an alleged gangster Jitender Gogi was stated to be “Truly well planned”
The ease with which the assailants entered into the court premises in the attire shows that they were well aware that it is easy to get access into the court by being in a lawyer’s attire. The Petitioner as someone who visits the istruict courts in Delhi has also seen how the Police personnel present at the court entrances more often than not step back from frisking a person who is in a lawyer’s attire. The point that the petitioner wishes to highlight is that the level of frisking of lawyers also needs to be made at the same level as in High Court of Delhi and the Supreme Court of India.
The plea suggested that the installation of Bio-Metric punching devices outside the entrance gates of all the courts.
The petitioner knows that there may be a section of lawyers who will not appreciate this suggestion of the petitioner, but the petitioner is making this suggestion considering the overall safety and security of judges, lawyers, court staff and litigants as a whole.
Petitioner sought a strict direction by the High Court to the Delhi Police Commissioner to instruct all the police personnel at court entrance to ensure that they check the ID cards of each and every lawyer who enters the court premises.
Meanwhile the co ordination committee of the all the District Bar Association has called for boycotting court work, both physical and virtual, on September 25 in the light of the shootout.
The Chief Justice of India has expressed deep concern at the incident and has spoken to the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court in this regard. It may be noted that Supreme Court the Supreme Court is considering another sou moto case relating to the security of judicial officers and court premises, which was taken in the wake of the killing of Jharkhand Judge Uttam Anand in Dhanbad.
