Patna, Oct 6 The Bihar Judicial Services Association on Tuesday urged the state government to provide at least one Personal Security Officer (PSO) or bodyguard to every serving judicial officer below the rank of Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM).
In a letter to the Home Department, the association's secretary Ajit Kumar Singh said the government should take an "expeditious and time-bound decision" on the demand.
The association said junior magistrates regularly deal with accused persons, undertrial prisoners and litigants in sensitive criminal cases, including those involving organised crime, extremist activities and other offences with serious security implications.
It pointed out that Additional CJMs and Judicial Magistrates of the First Class exercise cognisance powers similar to those of a CJM and, therefore, face "no less substantial" security risks.
"Security provisions cannot reasonably be made dependent upon designation alone when the risk arises essentially from the nature of judicial functions discharged," Singh said in the letter.
The association said the Home Department had not taken a final policy decision even nine years after a May 2017 resolution that withdrew security cover from junior judicial officers.
It also cited instructions from the Police Headquarters and the Inspector General of Security to districts against removing guards in a "mechanical manner".
Referring to observations of the Patna High Court, the association said security for judicial officers could not be based solely on individual threat perception as judges are inherently exposed to threats because of the nature of their work.
The association cited past incidents, including bomb blasts at civil courts in Ara, Chhapra and Sasaram and the broad-daylight shooting of an undertrial prisoner at Bettiah despite the presence of armed personnel.
It urged the government to introduce a uniform policy providing basic personal security to judicial officers as an "institutional safeguard" for independent judicial administration.
