The Yogi Adityanath government on Sunday said a special force will be set up in Uttar Pradesh that “can search and arrest without a warrant” on the basis of orders of the Allahabad High Court, which had expressed its displeasure over the security at civil courts last year in 2019.
When a Chairperson of the Uttar Pradesh Bar Council, Darvesh Kumari Yadav, 36, was shot dead by a colleague in her chamber on the civil court premises in Agra.
While briefing reporters, the Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said, “The state government has given orders for the constitution of a special security force. A roadmap in this regard has been sought from the UP DGP”.
“This is a dream project of the UP chief minister. The basis of this force is an order of the High Court, which had ordered that there should be a specialised force for civil courts. In all, there will be 9,919 personnel in the force,” said.
He added five battalions will be constituted in the first phase and it will be headed by an ADG-ranked officer.
“Expenses incurred in the first phase will be around Rs 1,747 crore,” said.
Later he said, the force will be deployed for the security of strategic and vital installations, high court, district court, state government administrative premises, religious spots, Metro Rail, airports, banks, industrial undertakings and any other establishment notified by the state government.
“Any member of the force may, without any order from a magistrate and without a warrant, arrest any person who voluntarily cause hurt to, or attempts voluntarily to cause hurt to, or wrongfully restrains or attempts wrongfully to restrain or assaults, or uses, or threatens or attempts to use criminal force to any employee”, section 11 of the CISF Act 1968 Awasthi said.
The state legislative assembly passed the Uttar Pradesh Special Security Force Bill-2020 in the monsoon session, paving the way for constitution of the specialised force.
A two-judge HC bench had said that most incompetent police personnel are being posted at the courts, adding that it will seek the deployment of central forces if the state government is not up to the task.