VIJAY DEO JHA
Ranchi, July 8: The Jharkhand government on Friday informed the Jharkhand High Court that it has planned to raise four battalions of Jharkhand Armed Police (JAP) for the protection of civil courts and judicial officers across Jharkhand. The state government has also planned to hire retired army personnel for this matter.
Jharkhand DGP Neeraj Sinha informed this to the Jharkhand High Court during the hearing on the matter related to witness protection scheme as well as overall security of civil courts. The Jharkhand High Court had taken suo moto cognizance of the murder of a prosecution witness Manpreet Pal Singh (22) at Jamshedpur court. The court also took a serious note of the murder of an undertrial Amit Kumar Singh at Deoghar court premise.
The DGP appeared before the court under instruction of the High Court and the matter was heard by the division bench of Dr. Ravi Ranjan and Justice Sujit Narayan Prasad.
During the hearing, the Chief Justice said that the court premises and judges are not safe and frequent incidents have taken place. The court further said that the state doesn’t have a witness protection scheme. The court said that there should be a periodical security audit of courts. The DGP said that a total of 1900 security personnel have been deployed across the state to provide security to court and judicial officials.
Explaining the killing of Amit Singh, a prisoner from Bihar who was shot dead at Deoghar court premise, the DGP said that Bihar police did not inform the Deoghar police that an undertrial is taken to Deoghar court for hearing. He said that the accused was not handcuffed and he did not come in a prisoner van. He came in a private vehicle which he himself was driving. Besides, he stayed at the house of his relative.
The court posted the matter for hearing after two weeks.
