Written by: Express News Service
3 min readNew DelhiSep 8, 2011 03:01 AM IST
First published on: Sep 8, 2011 at 03:01 AM IST
Following the blast at the Delhi High Court,the Supreme Court Wednesday sought to review its security urgently even as the judiciary maintained that justice will not bow before terror acts.
As the day progressed,official cars lined up outside the security room in the court complex as top police officers and security officials met senior apex court officials till late in the evening.
The blast found mention first in the courtroom of CJI S H Kapadia,who was hearing the Vodafone tax case,in the morning. While advocates requested the CJI to adjourn the proceedings following the explosion,senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi related how Parliament had upgraded security after the attacks in 2001.
The CJI asked Singhvi to file a note detailing the security measures in Parliament and the costs incurred. At this point,Solicitor General Rohinton Nariman,who is representing the government in the Vodafone case,assured the court that funds shall not be a problem.
Incidentally,a bunch of appeals filed by several accused against the death sentence awarded to them in the 1993 Bombay blasts was scheduled to be heard by a bench led by Justice P Sathasivam on Wednesday.
In Court 2,the first mention of the tragedy was made by Justice Altamas Kabir,who is also chairman of the SC security committee along with Justice D K Jain,at the beginning of the post-lunch session which started half-an-hour late. Justice Kabir,as soon as he entered the court,apologised. I am sorry we are late today. An unfortunate incident had taken place across the road, he told the assembled courtroom.
Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said he was at the High Court just minutes after the blast and found the entire place helter-skelter. He remarked that no CCTVs were fixed at the outer premises of the High Court even after the low intensity blast on May 25.
Why were CCTVs not there? Justice Kabir asked.
After further discussion on the security aspects in the SC,the judge assured the court that we are going to introduce certain measures.
Most other courts adjourned the cases. Former solicitor general Gopal Subramanium urged a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Deepak Verma to adjourn the days proceedings while Justice Bhandari expressed deep shock and anguish at the tragedy.
The proceedings before a bench of Justices G S Singhvi and H L Dattu were also temporarily adjourned after Ram Jethmalani,while arguing in a 2G spectrum scam case,mentioned the blast.
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