Institute of Legal and Management Studies

Underlining a need for strict action, the Supreme Court today expressed an inclination to lay down guidelines to tackle incidents of violence within Court premises.

"If some hardened criminals are allowed to come inside the court premises wearing lawyers' dress or not, but if they are indulging in this kind of thing, we need to have very harsh action against them. Firm, swift action is required against them. Individual liberty can be effectively protected by issuing other suitable directions", said Justice Surya Kant.

A bench of Justices Kant and Joymalya Bagchi was dealing with the Kerala Police Officers Association's challenge to a Kerala High Court order, which clarified guidelines to be followed by police personnel for arresting persons within court premises, along with a grievance redressal mechanism to be followed at the state and district levels.

Vide this order, the High Court not only clarified the guidelines to be followed by police personnel for arresting persons within Court premises but also made clarifications to a report regarding the code of conduct to be adhered by them within court premises. The order was passed in a suo motu case initiated to deal with instances of police violence against the legal fraternity, after a lawyer was allegedly attacked by police officers in Ramankary Magistrate Court, Alappuzha.

During today's hearing, the top Court expressed an inclination to expand the scope of the matter to tackle incidents of violence within Court premises. It opined that such incidents within Courts warrant harsh action and one-off unfortunate incidents (like in the present case) should not militate against that.

Justice Kant asked the petitioner to collate some data on such incidents of violence "where some accused facing trial, witnesses coming to depose, and even one or two lawyers, have been murdered in broad daylight in the Court premises".

The judge also noted that sometimes accused persons are able to enter Court premises in lawyers' robes: "Accused persons in so many cases coming in lawyers' dress, wearing black coat, band and everything. Particularly in Haryana, two instances I do recollect. In Delhi also, 2-3 incidents happened."

In this backdrop, severe implications of police personnel being rendered helpless in the face of a violent incident within Court premises were flagged. "Guidelines should be more stringent for Court premises. If somebody comes with a revolver inside and commits something, and you say we are helpless and can't even catch hold of that person, it's going to have very very serious implication" said Justice Kant.

While parting with the matter, the judge added, "Only because unfortunately one lawyer has been mishandled or something, that should not have this kind of reaction. That's what we feel. But you collect the information. We may like to widen the scope of this to consider pan-India impact...about the security inside courtrooms".

Case Title: KERALA POLICE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION Versus STATE OF KERALA AND ORS., SLP(C) No. 31008/2025

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