The Union government has decided to give Z category security to Justice S Abdul Nazeer, a member of the bench that pronounced the verdict on the Ayodhya case, and his family following intelligence reports that banned organisation Popular Front of India (PFI) may attack the Supreme Court judge. The Ministry of Home Affairs has ordered the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and the local police to provide Z category security to Justice Nazeer and his family.
Security agencies have warned that the PFI and some other fringe Islamic outfits could attack Justice Nazeer and his family because of the Ayodhya verdict that went in favour of Ram Lalla Virajman.
Security forces and local police will provide this security cover immediately. Justice Nazeer and family are domiciled in Karnataka while they currently live in New Delhi. The security cover will apply wherever in the country the family moves to. When the family visits Bengaluru, they will be accompanied by the guards from CRPF and Karnataka Police. In all, 22 paramilitary jawans, four or five NSG commandos and local police personnel. The security cover may be upgraded to the Z Plus category.
Besides delivering the Ayodhya verdict with four fellow judges, Justice Nazeer was a part of another Supreme Court bench of five judges that stopped short of pronouncing triple talaq illegal and put the ball in Parliament’s court instead. “The Union seeks at our hands, what truly falls in its own,” the bench had said, responding to the Muslim women petitioners who had sought the Supreme Court’s intervention for the sake of social security in their lives. In fact, Chief Justice JS Khehar and Justice Nazeer had said the apex court could not interfere in personal laws, which enjoyed the status of fundamental rights under the Constitution. In their dissenting judgement, the two judges had refused to be impressed by the “aggressive posture” adopted by the Narendra Modi government, Muslim women groups and media on the triple talaq issue.
However, the extent to which the bench made adverse comments about the anti-woman practice in Islam was enough to provoke the radicals of the community. Justice Nazeer was the sole Muslim judge in that bench, too.
Justice Nazeer, 61, had started his career as a lawyer in the Karnataka High Court in the year 1983. He was made the additional judge of the High Court in 2003. He was promoted as a judge of the Supreme Court on 17 February 2017.
