The Allahabad High Court has ordered withdrawal of gunners provided to controversial SP MLA Vijay Kumar Mishra and his daughter Seema Mishra, who has been fielded by the party in the Lok Sabha elections.
A division bench comprising Justice Tarun Agrawala and Justice Rajan Roy observed, "The philosophy of the state should be to maintain law and order at a macro level rather than concentrating on safety of certain individuals."
The bench passed the order on Wednesday while allowing a writ petition filed by BSP leader Pankaj Tripathi, whose family has been involved in a fierce, decades-old rivalry with Mishra and who had challenged the security cover provided to the MLA from Gyanpur constituency and his daughter.
Tripathi's uncle Rakesh Dhar Tripathi was a cabinet minister in the previous Mayawati government and is BSP's candidate from Bhadohi where Seema Mishra has been fielded by the ruling SP in the state.
The court was of the view that gunners had been provided to Mishra and Seema "without any application of mind and without evaluating the threat perception".
Significantly, on February 20 last the court had directed the state government to withdraw 'Y' category and 'X' category security cover given to Mishra and Seema respectively.
The court noted with dismay that the security cover was provided to the MLA despite the fact that as many as "60 criminal cases" were pending against him and remarked "providing security would bolster activities of such persons to the detriment of society at large".
"A person who has chosen violence and does not have any value of human life has no right to plead that the state should take special measures to protect his life from his rivals. The threat perception, if any, faced by such a person is of his own making for which the state cannot come forward to provide him security," the court added.
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