The Supreme Court today stayed a Punjab and Haryana High Court order for the opening of the road to Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s house on experimental basis from May 1. Notably, the road in front of the Chief Minister’s residence was blocked for security purposes during the Khalistani terrorism of the 1980s.
Staying the High Court’s order, the bench of Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Dipankar Datta said that nobody wants anything untoward to happen. The Supreme Court bench was hearing the Punjab government’s challenge to an order passed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, while dealing with suo-matter cases pertaining to traffic woes and infrastructure problems in Chandigarh.
Directing temporary opening up of the road to the Chief Minister’s residence, the High Court had ordered the Director General of Police and Senior Superintendent of Police, U.T, Chandigarh to formulate a traffic management plan as to how to ease the traffic congestion. It also criticized the Punjab government’s approach for ignoring public convenience and suggested that initially, the road be opened on working days from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM to ease traffic congestion on such days.
Earlier, the Court had noted that roads cannot be closed in perpetuity when most of the time Chief Ministers are not even there and travelling for work outside the Union Territory. It added that several threat perceptions have been mentioned which they do not want to elaborate and that they all feel that the inputs as such regarding the threat of drones and the RPGs being used would go on to show that the opinion is based on a closed mind-set of the authorities who are insensitive to the general public’s convenience.
It further pointed out that not a word has been averred in the affidavit regarding the law which has been laid down by the Supreme Court regarding the usage of public roads. The High Court also expressed that the state government shall positively act on the Chandigarh Tricity plan.
During the hearing on Friday, the Advocate General of Punjab, Senior Advocate Gurminder Singh, beseeched the court to stay the High Court’s direction. He mentioned the killing of singer Sidhu Moosewala, saying that he was killed right after his security was withdrawn.
Furthermore, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta supplemented the Punjab government’s case, submitting that security management should be left to the government. He also asked as to who would take responsibility if something untoward takes place within the 1 week for which the High court has directed the experiment.
Considering the submissions, the court issued notice, returnable in week commencing September 2. Subsequently, the High Court direction for opening of the road to the CM Bhagwant Mann’s house was stayed till next date, although proceedings in the writ petition were allowed to continue.