Supreme Court Allows Centre to Continue With Security Cover for Ambanis

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana has said that the Centre can continue to provide security cover to the Ambani family and junked a public interest petition in the Tripura High Court which had challenged the deployment of security by the government for the promoters of Reliance. As is the practice now, the Ambani family, the bench said, will pay for the expenses of maintaining such security cover.

According to a report in Live Law, the bench of CJI Ramana, Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli questioned the locus of the petitioner who had filed the PIL and added that the Tripura HC needn’t have entertained the petition.

“It is not in dispute that private respondents no. 2 to 6 are the promoters of, and in the management of, some of India’s biggest and most prominent companies. There are no reasons to disbelieve the existence of threat to the lives of the respondents no. 2 to 6…” the bench said.

“The petitioner – Union of India – is already cognizant of this threat and is therefore already providing security. Further, the High Court of Bombay has earlier also recognized the need for Z+ security for the respondents no. 2 to 6, and the Special Leave Petition against the same stands dismissed. In these circumstances, we are not inclined to entertain this issue in a PIL filed by a third party who has not proved his locus,” it added.

The Tripura High Court had on a PIL filed by one Bikash Saha passed two interim orders on May 31 and June 21 and directed the Central Government to place the original file maintained by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) regarding threat perception and assessment report of Ambani, his wife and children based on which security has been granted to them.

A vacation bench, on June 29, had stayed the orders of the Tripura High Court. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre, had said that the PIL petitioner, Bikash Saha, in Tripura has nothing to do with the security of individuals provided in Mumbai.

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