Army personnel take out a flag march during the Jat stir in Rohtak. afp file photo

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 28

The Army was sent to protect judicial officers at the instance of the Acting Chief Justice of the Punjab and Haryana High Court during the Jat agitation. Information to this effect was furnished before a Division Bench during the hearing of petitions hovering around the lawlessness in the state during the agitation last month.As the case came up for hearing, the Bench of Justice SS Saron and Justice Gurmit Ram was told by the amicus curiae, or the friend of the court, Anupam Gupta, that the state failed to protect judicial officers.The assertion came just about a fortnight after a Rohtak Court recorded in its order the details of attack on the houses of judicial officers. In his order, Rohtak Sessions Judge Sushil K. Gupta asserted: “It appears the curfew was only on papers. There was a complete collapse of the law and order machinery.“Even the gate lights, name plates and sign boards of the Sessions’ House were broken. All judicial officers were so afraid that on the evening of February 20, they had to run out of their houses to seek shelter at a safe place”. The observations were made during the hearing of a bail plea by Virender Kumar, an aide of former Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda.During the course of hearing this afternoon, Gupta also referred to a letter by Bhiwani Chief Judicial Magistrate-cum-secretary of the District Legal Services Authority Swati Sehgal.Addressed to Panchkula District and Sessions Judge-member secretary of the Haryana State Legal Services Authority, the letter said: “It has been told to me that from February 20 till February 29, the police guards deputed for the safety and protection of the court complex were disarmed. No intimation of the aforesaid action was given by the police department SP to the District Judge nor the guards deputed at the court complex bothered to inform the District Judge or any other judicial officer about the same.”“As per the information, during the Jat agitation, the DC and all officers of the administration and their families were at the residence of the SP for their safety, where a special guard was deputed.“Judicial officers posted in Bhiwani had several sleepless nights. Neither the police nor the administration, took the responsibility of safeguarding the families of judicial officers,” she added. The Bench took note of the communication before fixing April 4 as the next date of hearing.