10 January 2022 – In the wake of the January 5th incident, when the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi’s convoy was left stranded for about 20 minutes on a flyover in Punjab, the Supreme Court of India has said on Monday that an independent committee headed by a retired Supreme Court judge will investigate this lapse of security.
The composition of the committee will be provided by a detailed order, which will be passed by the bench comprising of the Honorable Chief Justice of India NV Ramana, Justice Hima Kohli, and Justice Surya Kant.
The bench has indicated that this committee will include the DGP of Chandigarh, the IG of the National Investigation Agency, Registrar General of Punjab, and the Haryana High Court & ADGP (Security) of Punjab.
The court has further asked the Punjab government and the Centre to put on hold any further investigations and enquiries related to the issue.
The Senior Advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the petitioner-NGO, however, has raised the issue that the Punjab Police have mentioned only a minor offence under the Indian Penal Code in their FIR of this incident.
He has also requested that the committee should look into invocating the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act of 1967 (UAPA) with respect to the incident.
However, the Supreme Court has decided not to complicate the issue, by invoking the UAPA.
Earlier, the Central Government had issued show-cause notices to 7 Punjab State Officers for taking disciplinary actions against them. The Advocate General of Punjab DS Patwalia has reasoned that the Centre won’t conduct any fair enquiries, stating that “there is some politics behind the show-cause notices.” The Supreme Court is said to have expressed displeasure at the Central Government for the same.
The Supreme Court is said to have asserted that the security breach has been accepted by the Punjab Government. The Court has raised questions over the nature and motive of the show-cause notices by the Centre.
The Court has asked “If the Centre wants to take disciplinary actions against the Officials, what remains for the court to look into?”
Last week, the Court called for the travel records of the Prime Minister to be preserved for further investigations.
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